Full Circle
by Snowthorne
Summary: Winter brings Legolas to Imladris. Not every year, but often enough. There, he meets a human boy with a mysterious past and a heavy mantle, but he isn't bothered. After all, Legolas nearly died eighty-two years ago, and since then, he has been living on borrowed time. A tale of first meetings, deceit, and friendship.
1. First Steps

Chapter 1

Mist coiled over the green, a great silver serpent that darted out at times to swallow the rising sun. Where it lingered everything was indistinct, the hazy remnants of a forgotten dream. Even the birdsong was tentative, as if loathe to shatter this otherworldly frieze. But sunlight deepened, shadows lengthened, and at last the mist disappeared with a playful flicker of its tail, leaving nothing behind but frosty scales to cloak bark and blossom.

The courtyard was exquisite in the winter sun; no craftsman's filigree could hope to match the silver limned trees. A squirrel scurried down the bough of his tree in search of his stockpile of nuts. He rested one paw on the soft, powdery snow, chattered in indignation at the cold that greeted him, and disappeared into the gardens with one delicate leap.

A pair of bright eyes watched him go. They were deep grey, like the squalls that added their mournful wail to the cry of the Belegaer every Hrívë. Estel lay on his stomach, contemplating the work of squirrels with as much thought as he gave Erestor's tales of Second Age heroes, trying to stay out of the sight of his eagle-eyed minder.

He sometimes wondered if Erestor's considerable talents were not better applied to sentry duty.

The wind carried the soft whisper of elven song to his ears. In spite of the chill seeping into his clothes, Estel pressed himself even more firmly against the ground, relying on blooming niphredil for cover. Through a narrow, woody gap, Estel watched as soft-booted feet padded across the courtyard. He studied the boots intently - they were made from simple leather, free of the intricate embroidery that his own boots bore, old and worn and comfortable.

Practical boots, then, guard boots. Estel could breath again. He had been memorising Ar-Pharazôn's extensive and rather bloody family history for what was certainly far too long. After a morning of committing the last King of Númenor's numerous failure to heart, Estel had taken it upon himself to wear at Erestor's patience with a vengeance.

After Erestor came dangerously close to tearing at his own hair - remarkable to see in a people who raised their voices once every other century - the episode culminated in an abandoned tome, a bruised ego, and Estel going into hiding.

Estel thought of Erestor with no small measure of guilt and satisfaction, and peered back through the foliage. The boots had gone.

Thank Valar for that too, for he had been a fugitive for a little over an hour, and there was only so much cold a little boy could bear. The wind nipped sharply at Estel, and slowly he got to his feet, glancing left and right as he emerged from his refuge.

When he was not immediately herded off by an army of well-meaning elves, Estel sighed in relief and hurried off after the squirrel.

No tracks marred the white expanse, the snow as pristine as it had been the hour it fell. Here and there niphredil - with all the frost, lofty beauty of ancient glaciers - graced the courtyards with its pale blossoms. Quiet peace always permeated Imladris, but today even the song of waterfalls was muffled by the snowfall. The familiar landscape became foreign. The only footprints were his own.

A glint of mischief flashed in Estel's eyes, and he began taking bigger and bigger steps, imagining a sword swinging by his side, a circlet of stars upon his brow. He was a King of old, he was Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first to set foot on a forgotten land.

Goosebumps raced up his arms, and not entirely because of the biting wind.

Estel looked back upon his little trail of footprints and felt a faint twinge of irritation. Real elves - or half-elves - did not sludge their way through the snow. He took another almighty step, being careful not to let his toes brush against the fluffy snow. Wholly absorbed by the minute details of foot placement, Estel failed to notice that he had overbalanced until he was falling.

He had a brief moment to mourn his nose as the white ground reared up to meet him. But a heartbeat before he ate a mouthful of snow, so close he could feel ice crystals brush against his lips, a pair of arms slipped around his middle and arrested his fall.

The world spun upside down, sky and land interlocking in a swirl of grey and white. When his vision steadied, gentle hands lowered him to his feet, and he only had time to recognise a familiar pair of plain, worn boots before he was face to knee with the elven guard.

The Ñoldor of Imladris had dark hair and grey eyes, the many fine lords and ladies standing tall and stately in rich, ornate robes, so upon first sight Estel knew immediately that he was a stranger to these lands.

The elf was very strange. He was clad in muted colours, mottled greens and browns like the dappled forest floor. But Estel's attention was immediately drawn to his pale hair. It spilled down his back, liquid white-gold in the winter sun, bound back in the intricate braids favoured by archers.

It was so bright, like a shiny new coin - belatedly, an all too familiar memory of Elrond's eyebrows arching with disapproval interrupted Estel's appreciation of the elf's hair.

"Who are you?" Estel said, his voice filling with curiosity and retrospective suspicion. Tilting his head up to meet the elf's eyes, he was secretly pleased to find that this elf appeared to be slightly shorter than his brothers.

Well, for what he might have lacked in height he more than made up for in beauty, Estel admitted to himself.

Erestor was right. Fair and magnanimous was Illuvatar.

"A wanderer from far away." The elf's eyes danced, and Estel thought of the flicker of woodland shadows. "I have many names. Have you heard of Haldir?"

Estel tipped his head to the side. "No?"

"No, indeed. You would not know of a simple marchwarden of the Golden Wood." The elf shook his head sadly, hiding a wicked smile.

* * *

Across the Misty Mountains, Haldir was lounging idly in the embrace of a mallorn, carefully polishing his bow, when a sudden bout of sneezing nearly knocked him into the forest below. Recovering with a graceful surge, he glared balefully east.

* * *

"Lothlórien?" The boy's voice was wondering.

"Strange are the trees that grow there," the elf sighed. "In the autumn their leaves glimmer as if spun from the finest gold, and in the winter shapes form in their golden depths - fish that walk on land and men the size of bears."

His eyes glittered. "And bears the size of dragons."

Estel stared at his strange visitor, half disbelievingly.

But he lifted his golden head in a way that reminded Estel of his own brothers, and he had saved Estel from a wet snowbank, and so slowly Estel relaxed.

"Mae govannen," he said, in an effort to appear more grown-up.

Haldir twisted his hand over his heart solemnly. "A light shines over the hour of our meeting."

"I am Elros Peredhil," Estel continued, and Haldir's mischievous eyes widened slightly. "Would you like to be my bannerman?"

"Of course." Haldir nodded seriously, and dipped his head in a bow. "My liege."

Haldir kept in step with Estel as he continued to explore his realm, his footsteps so light that the snowflakes beneath his feet were undisturbed by his passage. Estel studied him out of the corner of his eye, and tried to mimic the unconscious grace with which he moved. Estel had grown up amongst elves, but the ease with which Haldir drifted over the snow left Estel wondering whether he really was a creature of flesh and blood.

Estel raised each foot high and set it down as carefully as he knew how. After ten minutes of failure he was on the brink of kneeling down to have a serious conversation with the snow when Haldir said softly, "May I?"

Estel regarded his outstretched hand dubiously, but he had nothing to lose. He nodded, and his feet left the ground for the second time in half an hour.

Haldir gently lifted him so that his feet barely skimmed the surface of the snow. Almost immediately, Estel forgot his indignation in light of the endless possibilities that stretched out before him. He stepped forward gingerly and lo and behold - the snow remained unbroken.

Estel took a few more steps, almost tripping in midair in his eagerness, but the elf's firm grip about his waist kept him stable and upright. He was half-elven - he was Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first King of Númenor.

Estel laughed - the sound was bright and pure, and as if summoned by his unbridled joy, Elladan and Elrohir chose that precise moment to materialise.

"Doing away with our younger brother already, are we?" Elrohir said in lieu of a greeting. He squinted at the golden-haired elf. "Good, we have you to blame for Estel's disappearance."

"Elladan! Elrohir, I can walk like an elf!" Estel's voice bubbled over in excitement, and Haldir obligingly followed him around another circuit of the meadow.

Elladan clapped, and awaited the little king's return with a warm mantle. "Are you ready for supper?" he murmured, wrapping the cloak snugly about Estel's small frame.

"You had better be," Elrohir piped up. "After you vanished, Ada's eyebrows threatened doom and destruction. For quite a while. It was a long afternoon."

He spun to glare accusingly at their guest, who was watching in bemusement. "Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to have an audience with our father upon arrival? Do you think the endless stream of eagles, bearing worried messages disguised as royal missives, has been good for our health?"

Estel's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Elrohir." Elladan said patiently. "Please save your madness for the dinner table."

But Elrohir was beyond listening. "We are running out of field mice to feed them! If I have to see the royal stag of the House of Oropher plastered to my window one more time I will eat my horse - "

'Haldir' appeared behind Elrohir like a ghost, and wrapped a comforting hand around the Ñoldo's shoulder in a vice-like grip.

"Elrohir," he purred. "The lady of the Golden Wood has been known to eat troublesome Ñoldor such as yourself."

Elrohir's mouth fell open.

* * *

In a clearing in the depths of Calas Galadhon, the Lady Galadriel sneezed, sending ripples spreading across her mirror. "Impudent little prince," she said, but she was smiling.

* * *

They dripped their way across the Hall of Fire. As Legolas turned his damp cloak over in the warmth of the roaring fireplace, Elrohir turned towards one of Imladris' many winding passageways. Behind him trailed his anxious twin, clucking gently at the little human boy blinking sleepily against Elrohir's shoulder.

Legolas watched them go, and the bright humour that often flickered in his eyes darkened into something unreadable. Only when a shadow fell over him, emanating disapproval and fatherly exasperation in equal parts, did he return to himself.

"My lord," Legolas murmured, hand flying to his heart as he dipped into a graceful bow. Despite his father's claims otherwise, he did not lack an instinct for self-preservation.

Elrond's voice held the suppressed fury of a breaking wave. It was also very tired. "You were expected two weeks ago, Legolas."

"Orcs came from the south, my lord. I could not leave."

Elrond's left eyebrow twitched. "Nonetheless, you barely escaped the mountain snows. If the Red Pass had closed and you had been forced to turn back - the Greenwood would lose far more than her prince."

Legolas stayed respectfully silent. But one look at his humble, attentive expression and Elrond felt as if he might as well been reprimanding the wind.

"Legolas," Elrond warned. "If you do not keep to our agreement, I shall tell your father."

Legolas' head jerked up, and Elrond was suddenly struck by his inability to read the clear depths of the young prince's eyes.

"You gave me your word, my lord," Legolas said, quietly. "And I will keep to mine."

"My lord!" Elrond turned to see his advisor, looking distinctly strained, hurrying across the Hall. "I suspect Estel has caught a Mannish ailment - which is not in itself unusual, how frail Men are! - he has been sneezing for the past hour. Lady Gilraen asks if you might please take a look at him."

"Legolas - " Elrond turned back to the prince, and found himself staring at thin air.

A headache nudged at his temples, and blossomed with truly remarkable speed when he thought of a similarly recalcitrant old elf who ruled the other side of the mountains, whose missives were still awaiting a reply.

 _Sindar_ , he thought.

* * *

Elrohir was dangling a quill over Estel's sleeping face. Every time the feathered tip grazed Estel's nose, Elladan would look up from his scrolls to glare at him. His gaze was both scorching and ineffectual, because Elrohir had discovered roughly two millennia ago that taunting his twin was a most noble pastime.

Estel's rooms, awash in gentle firelight and the warmth of good company, had been commandeered by Imladris' young lords this night. Elladan had discretely expanded his papers over the gleaming mahogany bureau, while Elrohir sank into the armchairs by the fireplace like an oversized house cat.

Together, they had successfully nudged Gilraen out of the door. She had spent the evening fussing over her feverish little boy, and had left only after plying the twins with reminders and instructions. But when she turned to close the door behind her, a comforted smile spread over her worn features.

The world had not been kind to her. Perhaps as compensation, she had been blessed with more elven generosity than any Man rightfully deserved.

"I will add Legolas to the patrol roster, then?" Elrohir said, his voice hushed. It was barely louder than crackling of the flames, and his twin was seated a considerable distance away, but Elladan heard.

"Afternoon patrol," he said.

Elrohir glanced askance at him. "Why? The little elfling has always been an early riser."

Elladan fell into a thoughtful silence. "Well," he said at last. "The Greenwood has not seen much peace of late. Let him rest."

Elrohir continued to stare at him suspiciously, but Elladan ignored him with an ease born of centuries of practice and returned to his scrolls. With a groan, Elrohir gave Estel's nose a final jab and carefully swiped the boy's forehead with cold cloth before retreating to his armchair.

Deaf to Elrohir's grumbles, Elladan tapped his quill against his cheek. There was just the barest hint of hesitation before he marked down Legolas' name in the patrol roster in careful, curling Tengwar.

* * *

"Elfling!"

Elrohir rapped sharply on Legolas' door. He gave it five seconds, and then deciding he had shown enough courtesy for the day, threw the door open.

He headed straight for the balcony, without sparing a single glance for the neat, almost untouched room.

"Father better not catch you running after swans!" His bellow reverberated around the valley below.

He was met with unimpressed silence. Then a slender hand wrapped around the graceful stone vines of the balustrade, and Legolas leapt lightly over the parapet. He was holding a tuft of swan feathers in his other hand, and met Elrohir's accusatory gaze with wide-eyed innocence.

"Odd to find you here, I thought these were my rooms?" Legolas said.

Elrohir smiled at him, sickly-sweet. "And I thought this was my House?"

Legolas looked comforted, as if Elrohir had bestowed upon him some great secret of the universe, and strode easily past an open-mouthed Elrohir.

"Oi," he tried again. "The swans need those for flying."

"And I convinced them quite persuasively to spare some for me," Legolas said reasonably. "My arrows need fletching."

"How do you always manage to find swans in the dead of winter?"

Legolas was already rolling an arrow shaft between his fingers, sighting carefully along it to make sure that there were no flaws in the wood. The swan feathers were spread out before him, a pristine white fan, and he selected one after some thought.

"We missed you at breakfast today," Elrohir said, taking a seat on Legolas' bed and watching him work. "Father wants to see you - something about King Thranduil and a lot of messenger eagles."

Elrohir furrowed his eyebrows. "It sounded quite urgent - are you sure the Greenwood can spare you?"

Legolas' head was bowed, so Elrohir could not see his eyes, but he thought he detected a faint stiffening of Legolas' shoulders.

"Father also said that you should rest." Elrohir studied him quizzically. "I wouldn't put it past you to be secretly hiding a massive war injury. Come, out with it. Do I need to invade Dol Guldur to defend your honour?"

A burst of laughter escaped Legolas, and the sound was as welcome as the purr of a bubbling creek. He heaved an internal sigh of relief. If the elfling could laugh, he probably wasn't dying.

"I am quite fine," Legolas said, smiling faintly. "Did you really think my father would allow me to leave the Greenwood with a massive war injury?"

Elrohir found himself grinning as well.

"In that case, you will have to earn your keep," he said with mock sternness. "The afternoon patrol awaits Your Highness' presence."

He didn't see Legolas' hand move, but a pebble bounced off his forehead, nailing him between the eyes with casual precision. Hastily, Elrohir retreated to the door, berating Legolas with several words not generally found in the lexicon of well-bred young lords.

As soon as the door swung shut behind Elrohir, Legolas dropped the arrow he was holding. He braced himself against the ground with one outstretched hand, while the other twisted itself into the front of his tunic.

A fierce, familiar pain had blossomed behind his breastbone, throbbing like a malevolent heartbeat. The world around him darkened to shades of grey and slid sideways.

Legolas shut his eyes to the blurring room and took short, shallow breaths. As the pain whispered against his chest, he thought of beech trees and patchwork sunlight, great underground halls of living stone.

The pain intensified to a single, terrible point, before retreating as abruptly as it came. Legolas swayed, steadying himself by sheer force of will. He stared down at the five pinpricks of blood that dotted the front of his tunic - he had broken the skin with his fingernails.

Then he blinked and retrieved the abandoned arrow, bending over the fletchings once more.


	2. Of Acorns and Chicken Livers

When they returned from the afternoon patrol, having seen nothing of concern save icicles of considerable size, Elrond was waiting for them on the steps of the House.

"Legolas," he called pleasantly, as soon as the prince was in earshot. "I would like to see you in my study, please."

Elrohir looked at Legolas with an expression somewhere between pity and glee. The latter nodded and made to ride towards the stables.

"Now," Elrond said, slightly less pleasantly.

Legolas gave his horse a gentle pat and dismounted. Immediately, elven guards stepped towards him, forming a loose, faintly threatening ring.

Elrohir was staring at him, awestruck. "Are you being arrested?"

Legolas sighed, and handed his reins over to the nearest guard.

"Faensul likes a few dandelions with his hay," he said.

When Elrond entered his study, just a few steps behind Legolas, he found the elven prince perched on the windowsill, turning the Great Seal of Imladris over and over in his hands with polite boredom.

Though he recalled leaving it in a locked box, in a locked cabinet hidden behind a very heavy marble statue of Eärendil the Mariner, Elrond payed no heed to the Great Seal currently being tossed around like a stick of firewood.

"How much worse has it gotten?"

Legolas stilled, but tilted his head like he did not completely understand the question.

Elrond's gaze sharpened. "Tell me now, Legolas. How many times this winter?"

There was a pause, and then Legolas spoke in a soft voice as nebulous as morning mist. "Eight, including this morning, my lord."

Elrond drew in a harsh breath. "You should have come sooner."

"Sooner?" There was an odd note in Legolas' voice.

"My lord, over the last autumn alone we were pushed fifty miles north from Dol Guldur. Orcs and spiders overrun our borders, and my people - my people are displaced and killed."

His words were hushed with grief. "Tell me, my lord, how could I have come?"

Elrond regarded him sorrowfully. The Greenwood's defences rested on the slender shoulders of its last warrior-prince, and for the most part, Legolas bore it well. But his face was unusually pale even for an elf. And those grey eyes, even now calm and clear, like the mirror-still surface of a lake, they were not the eyes of a child.

"You have little choice, Legolas," Elrond said quietly. "You must take care of yourself, for your father and the people you have sworn to protect. For the remainder of your stay, you are not to leave the grounds of Imladris, and you will see me every evening."

His laughter was weary. "Why bother, my lord, when the most you can grant me is another century or two?"

"With the way you are carrying on now, I should be surprised to see you live to next spring." Elrond's voice hardened, turning dangerous. "Remember, Legolas, I keep your secret to safeguard your realm, not so you can pave a path to your grave."

The Great Seal clattered onto his writing table with a dull crash that rang of frustration, but Elrond could taste triumph on his tongue.

"Then you will need this to write to King Thranduil, my lord. Tell him that his son is - and will be - safe and sound," Legolas said, his voice soft and polite. Having apparently lost interest in the conversation, he began to trace the outline of acorns into the condensation on the windows.

As Elrond began to crumble dried athelas leaves into a waiting bowl of hot water, Legolas pressed numb fingers to his breastbone. He was so cold, his exhales left no mark in the wintry air.

Somewhere deep inside, as if objecting to the scent of athelas, the lingering phantom of a Morgul-blade flared with frigid abandon.

* * *

"Your turn," Elrohir nudged his queen forward and leaned back. Legolas was sitting across from him. The prince had his head propped up with one hand, and was regarding the chessboard with apparent consternation, eyebrows faintly furrowed.

"I have you now, you scoundrel." Elrohir revelled. Though Legolas had many talents, chess was not one of them. Elrohir knew this, but the knowledge never made the victory any less sweet.

Legolas blinked. "Oh." He reached out, moving his knight almost carelessly, and Elrohir immediately returned to staring at the chessboard with narrowed eyes.

"You cannot deceive me with such an obvious gambit, elfling," he muttered.

Legolas smiled indulgently and hid a yawn. Athelas, for all the good Elrond claimed it did, never failed to stir the beast residing beneath his breastbone into a murderous fury, and it wore him down to the bone. He had fallen asleep thrice since the beginning of the match, and Elrohir had not noticed once.

Outside, snowflakes danced through the sky with careless abandon, flecking the night with silvery white. Hazy rings of lantern light, made ephemeral by the snowfall, flickered in and out of sight in the valley below.

It was a beautiful sight, but Legolas wished they were seated just a little further from the windows. Elven architecture often reflected the elven disdain for all mortal beings who feared the cold, and the windows in Elrohir's rooms, while beautiful with their swooping, organic arches, did little to counter the northern wind.

He could only hope that the biting draught was enough to sweep away any remnants of the scent of athelas.

Elrohir had his fingers steepled, still immersed in the game of chess, but Legolas' gaze drifted expectantly to the door. They heard the light patter of ungainly footsteps long before Estel burst into the room, in a whirlwind of glee at having finally escaped Gilraen's watchful eye.

"Elrohir," he sang, running to them.

Without looking up from the chessboard, Elrohir reached out and hauled the boy onto his lap by the scruff of his neck.

"Elrohir, do try not to break him." Elladan said, entering in the wake of Estel's excitement.

"I can take care of children!" Elrohir said, trying for indignation and ending up sounding vaguely threatening.

As if just to contradict him, Estel let out a healthy sneeze. As Legolas prodded a rook into the warpath of Elrohir's queen, Estel wiggled his way onto the arm of the chaise-lounge, staring at Legolas with owlishly big eyes.

"You aren't Haldir," he said, sounding faintly betrayed.

"And you are not Elros Peredhil," said Legolas, as he watched Elrohir raze his troops to the ground.

"Who are you then?"

Legolas was smiling faintly. "Who do you think I am?"

"Oh, Elu," muttered Elladan. He crossed the room and latched the windows more firmly. "Legolas, will you cease taunting him?"

"Legolas…" Estel said, his tone wondering.

"Yes, Legolas," Elrohir leaned back with an air of satisfaction. Before him, the disemboweled remains of what was once a chess match were strewn across the table. "Estel, I present to you Legolas Thranduilion, a lying scoundrel, a terrible chess player, and the last elven prince west of the sea."

Estes hopped off Elrohir's armchair and drifted closer to Legolas, studying him with a mixture of poorly-concealed awe and curiosity. Legolas tipped his head to one side, and seemed to forget Estel's presence. He reached out for an ancient scroll with one languid hand.

Then with a suddenness that took Elladan's breath away, Legolas' head snapped up, pupils narrowing like those of a cat's, until his eyes were almost solid grey. The warmth there drained away, replaced by a frigid serenity reminiscent of the snow-capped peaks of the Hithaeglir.

The heir of Númenor held Legolas' gaze for a full ten seconds before dropping his eyes. Legolas seemed pleased; a lopsided smile of approval spread across his features.

"Oh, you old warg," Elrohir marvelled. "That was one of the most - "

He caught Elladan's disapproving glower.

" - unnecessary things you have ever done!" Elrohir finished meekly.

Legolas ignored the pair and stretched a hand out to Estel. The boy looked at it with faint wariness that was mingled with awe, and Legolas laughed, eyes dancing.

"You are Estel, I gather?" he said, gently. "It is a pleasure to meet you. Tell me, Estel. If I were to sneak out from a conference with Lord Elrond, how would I go about doing it?"

Estel did not even hesitate. "You don't. If you try, you'll be caught and made to eat nettle soup." His little face scrunched up in disgust. "Nettle soup is not nice."

Legolas nodded gravely. "What about trying to sneak away from a meeting with Lord Erestor?"

Elladan and Elrohir watched with complete bemusement as Estel took Legolas' hand. He began chattering to Legolas about important matters, like 'secret passageways', 'chicken liver', and 'snowball fights', and in return the crown prince of Greenwood the Great listened to Estel with more attentiveness than he usually displayed at councils of war.

Estel was fascinated by Legolas' hair - "it looks like elanor!" - and Legolas let Estel poke and prod at his head with patient magnanimity. Then, seized by some sudden desire for death, Estel giggled and yanked, coming away with a handful of golden hair.

Elrohir's eyebrows inched upwards. When Legolas did not immediately pin Estel to the wall with a hunting knife, Elrohir's eyebrows disappeared into his hair.

Legolas only blinked away the tears in his eyes, and the saccharine smile that spread across his face made the hair on the back of Elladan's neck stand up.

Grinning widely, Estel threw his handful of liquid gold into the air, ignorant of his impending doom.

* * *

Legolas opened his eyes to a morning softened by the mist of rumbling waterfalls. It was a pleasant, companionable thunder that filled his mind and allowed his own thoughts to meander unheeded, catching at nothing and dissipating with the play of scattered rainbows over frostbitten rock.

He caught a sunbeam in his hand, turning it over and over with childlike fascination. The movement dislodged some of the snow that had settled overnight on his shoulders and it billowed around him like powdered sugar. He eyed it contemplatively, and shook his head like a wet cat, sending another swirl of snowflakes wafting into the air.

"Having fun?"

Legolas coughed and narrowed his eyes at the frost glimmering on his cloak.

"You stayed out here the entire night, didn't you?" Elladan's voice echoed up from below him, filling with affectionate exasperation. "Would you mind coming down before you slip off and fall to your humiliating death?"

Legolas rose to his feet. He stood upon a spar of rock where the waterfall forked, but he did not seem overly bothered by the slick sandstone beneath his feet, or the remarkably long drop from his perch to where Elladan was waiting, at the foot of the waterfall.

He stood with his weight shifted forwards, like a bird about to take flight. Looking at him was like looking through a thin sheet of rice-paper, held up against a winter sun, and Elladan tried his best to keep the worry out of his gaze.

Then in a flurry of green and gold, Legolas leapt into a nearby pine tree, moving with all the lithe self-assurance of a mountain lion, and Elladan found that he could breathe again.

When Legolas finally dropped to the ground, Elladan was waiting for him with a flask of hot tea. Legolas took it from him delicately, as if the heat of the flask pained him, and Elladan pretended not to see.

"Your father wrote," he said.

"I know." Legolas was looking at the tea with distaste. It would appear as though Elrond had found a way to steep athelas leaves.

"He asks that you return as soon as the High Pass thaws," Elladan continued, quietly. "What are you going to do?"

The look Legolas flashed him was sharp and assessing. "I will say that Imladris has been encountering some trouble by way of orcs, and that he will understand the delay."

Elladan's brows furrowed. "Would that be wise?"

Legolas looked at him, almost faintly amused, and then held out an expectant hand. "Give me your bow."

Elladan's longbow was made of yew, sleek and unassuming, and the insignia of Imladris twining around its limbs were the only mark of vanity upon it. Blinking away his bemusement, Elladan strung the bow with a practiced hand and passed it to Legolas.

It was a beautiful thing to watch Legolas draw.

He raised the bow and drew the bowstring to his cheek in one fluid motion, like running water, flowing along a course traced over hundreds of years. But Elladan saw his arms tremble with effort as he pulled the bow, smaller and lighter than the bows of the Galadhrim or even Legolas' own, to full draw, and his heart sank.

A thousand years ago, Elladan had stopped to watch a visiting prince surreptitiously shoot down apples. The elfling, barely waist-high, had struggled to counter the draw weight of the bow he had purloined from Elrohir, but even then Elladan had seen in his little face the makings of a great archer.

Now, Legolas lowered the bow, a sardonic smile tugging at his lips, the ghost of an elfling in his eyes.

"An archer who cannot draw," Legolas said, dispassionately. "Do you still think I should return with all haste?"

"Legolas," Elladan whispered.

Legolas' voice sharpened almost imperceptibly. "Do not pity me. How much do you know?"

He gazed into Legolas' cool grey eyes, the self-awareness glimmering there, and found lying useless.

"Eighty-two years ago, we received news that you were stabbed in the chest in a raid on Dol Guldur. The messenger said that you recovered quickly, and that there was nothing to worry about. But afterwards you came to Imladris almost every year if you were able to. Almost every winter."

Elladan spoke haltingly. "Your realm borders darkness - I know what others think, but you do not come for leisure. Something happened that winter, eighty-two years ago, and you are still paying the price."

There was a pause.

"Well done," Legolas said, simply.

Elladan bit back his surprise at this straightforward admission. "Is that - is that all?"

"Is there more?" Legolas' eyes were bright and guileless.

Elladan fought to swallow the frustration gnawing at the back of his throat and switched angles of attack with the suddenness of a hawk pivoting in midair.

"Your father and your people cannot continue to be kept in the dark. What happens when the Greenwood realises that it has been under the protection of a prince who cannot even protect himself?"

But Legolas only stared at him blankly, as if he were asking for directions to Valinor.

"Elladan, surely two clever people need not trouble themselves with stupid questions."

Without waiting for Elladan's response, Legolas threw the bow back at him and turned towards the Last Homely House.

"Coming?" Legolas called, his voice already growing distant.

Elladan clenched his fists and glared at the snowy ground.

He knew, of course, why Legolas' mysterious illness was shrouded from public knowledge. For the morale of his people, for the sanity of his father, and for fear that the enemy would capitalise on this weakness, Legolas had shouldered a mounting burden in silence for the past century.

Dull rage settled in him, smouldering like a hot coal.

For all his cunning mischief and infuriating calm, Legolas stood on shifting sand, and still he was trying to hold Dol Guldur at bay.

Who did he think he was?

The wind swept the sound of muffled coughing towards him. Elladan closed his eyes almost petulantly, and remained unmoving. Then he shook his head irritably and hurried off after Legolas.

"One day," Elladan muttered, "everyone will realise their beloved warrior-prince is the biggest idiot in all of Arda."

His only answer was the howling of the wind, who seemed to be laughing at them both.


	3. True Heart

Chapter 3

In retrospect, Elrohir should have seen it coming.

He had been chewing on the end of his quill, reading a tome on Gil-Galad's military manoeuvres and scribbling down plans for future patrol exercises, when Elladan appeared at the door. That, in and of itself, was not cause enough for Elrohir to look up, even when Elladan announced that they were going for a walk with the sort of indecent cheeriness that belonged at weddings and funerals and nowhere else.

Then Estel poked his head out from behind Elladan. One flash of those big, hopeful eyes and Elrohir was already setting his book down. With Elladan shooting him a last, meaningful look, they vanished, presumably to go harass other innocent elves.

Elrohir briefly contemplated finishing his report on Mannish trading. Then there was a loud crash from the direction of Legolas' rooms and he patted his books apologetically before leaping out the window.

A foot of new snow had fallen overnight, and when he joined them by the south lawn, Estel was entertaining himself by falling into snowdrifts just so Legolas could pluck him out. Though he had never been relegated to the position of nanny in his life, the prince followed his charge without a word of complaint.

"You look terrible," Elrohir said, raising an eyebrow. In fact, he looked worse than when he had first arrived at Imladris a week ago. Legolas was of slender build, but today the hollows beneath his cheekbones seemed especially prominent. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," Legolas said soothingly, setting Estel on his feet. Elrohir looked pointedly at Elladan.

Elladan waved his question away dismissively. "Erestor says that he has found Legolas holed up in the library the last two nights. He probably hasn't been sleeping."

Estel found a squirrel-cache and Legolas leaned over to study it. "You never know when you might need to ward your horse against goblins."

"How would you do that?" Elrohir asked.

"With the filet of a swamp snake - and hemlock, flowered under the light of a full moon," Legolas said, with a glint in his eye, and Elrohir decided not to ask any more questions.

"In any case," Elladan declared, to no one in particular. "Exercise is good for one's health."

They set off. Legolas was steered across the lawn by Elladan's firm grip on his elbow, but to his credit, he only smiled vaguely, as if unsure whether to be amused or terrified.

Elrohir retrieved Estel from the nearest snowdrift and trailed after them, nonplussed and very suspicious.

But half an hour later, Elrohir was forced to conclude that perhaps, this was, after all, only a walk. Legolas had allowed Elladan to tow him across the lawn with patient forbearance, but the moment they entered the surrounding woods, he had slipped off with the ease of a fish darting through water.

Now, they were sprawled out by a frozen tributary of the Bruinen, under an old oak with gnarled branches. The river was masked by a thick layer of snow, which Elrohir was using like a canvas. He traced the outlines of two opposing armies into the snow and lifted his chin at his twin. Elladan settled onto the snow opposite Elrohir, reaching out to draw a solitary unit that branched off from the main force.

"Do not wander too far, Estel. Legolas, watch him, will you?" Elrohir called. He swept a hand over the snow to reroute Elladan's attempt to sneak up on the left flank of his army. A faint rustle came from the oak overhead, and Elrohir took it to be a noise of acknowledgement.

Estel was currently in the process of constructing a town out of snow, too tired from the walk to be overly lively, so Elrohir applied himself to their game in earnest.

He was in the middle of saying something about crossbowmen when Elladan suddenly lifted his head. Elladan did not say anything, but the way his eyes narrowed told Elrohir everything. He tensed.

"Estel," Elladan said, his voice calm and steady. He did not seem to be panicking at all. "Please come back."

Estel was rooting around in the snow, searching for acorns or pinecones, treasures that were always invaluable in the eyes of children, happily oblivious to the fact that he was standing on a frozen river.

Elrohir met Elladan's gaze, and saw his own carefully concealed dread reflected in his eyes. In the stillness of the wintery landscape, they could both hear ominous grinding sounds issuing from the ice beneath Estel's feet.

Elrohir rose and drifted towards the river.

"Estel," Elladan tried again, his tone sharpening. The boy looked up with an open-hearted smile that pulled at Elrohir's heart. "Come back now. Mind where you step."

Ordinarily, Estel might have pretended not to hear him, but perhaps the quiet gravity of Elladan's voice persuaded him otherwise, and he began to make his way back towards them.

Thank Iluvatar for minor miracles, thought Elrohir.

Then the ice protested with a loud, resounding crack and Estel froze, terror draining the colour from his face.

"Don't move!" Elladan shouted, abandoning all pretence. Elrohir sprang forwards, reaching for Estel - he was only a few yards away -

He saw a blur of gold out of the corner of his eye and a smudge of grey as Elladan moved in practically the same heartbeat, and then the situation rapidly spiralled out of control.

The trajectory of Elrohir's leap brought him too close to Legolas. He brushed against Legolas' shoulder and sent the smaller elf stumbling into Elladan's path; they collided. Elrohir, originally perfectly poised to catch Estel, had to jump over the two of them, and the delay cost him.

There was a sound like distant thunder, and the ice split open beneath Estel.

The child fell heavily, his fingers scrabbling for purchase in the ice. It was unforgivingly smooth, but somehow, perhaps by virtue of his indomitable Numenorean heritage or his own incurable stubbornness, Estel managed to find a handhold.

He clung to the ice, submerged in frigid water from the waist down.

"Help," Estel mumbled, and offered them a wobbly smile.

"Don't worry, child," Elrohir called, his voice tight. He made to lunge forwards, but Legolas grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip.

"Can you hear the whispers of the river?" Legolas said, his voice hushed and urgent. He met Elrohir's burning gaze steadily, ignoring the question he saw there. "Now the ice will most certainly break under your weight. Let me."

Elrohir's lips twitched in the beginnings of a snarl, but he bit it back.

"No!" cried Elladan, his voice filling with terrible fear, but Elrohir was already moving aside.

Legolas dipped his golden head, and stepped onto the ice.

"Legolas, you can't - Elrohir, stop him!"

Elladan darted after Legolas, his composure rapidly fracturing. Elrohir seized his twin by the shoulders, increasingly alarmed by the ferocity with which he struggled.

"Calm yourself, brother," Elrohir said. "We cannot afford for the ice to splinter any further."

But Elladan did not respond. He only stared after Legolas fiercely, as if he meant to haul both him and Estel ashore through sheer will alone.

The archer moved soundlessly over the ice, his footsteps light and quick, and his eyes tightly shut. The river spoke in creaks and groans, its current throbbing in a dark, steady pulse, and Legolas strained to listen to its voice.

In truth, the things that were said about elves in mortal circles, of their collusion with the devil and use of unholy magic, were not entirely groundless. It was an intimate understanding of the music of the Ainur, rather than pure physical grace alone, that granted elves silent passage through nature.

Legolas let his mind empty until he remembered only the Bruinen, its loud, rushing cry, frigid headsprings, and the endless flow of water. Kingdoms rose and fell, centuries slid past, and still the Bruinen followed its timeless course from the Misty Mountains to the sea.

Iluvatar's song guided his footfalls. He was nothing, only a conduit, a drop of river water, a pebble on the riverbed.

A cobweb of fine fractures spread across the ice, poised to shatter at the touch of a bird's wing, but it held beneath Legolas' feet. Even now in the depths of winter, sweat dripped down Legolas' brow.

"Estel," Legolas murmured, his voice unsteady.

"Here," the child whispered.

With agonising slowness, Legolas knelt. He wrapped cold fingers around Estel's wrist and began to pull. The ice rasped and caught at Estel's clothes, unwilling to relinquish its prize, but the child made no sound of protest.

In his soaked clothes, Estel was far heavier than a child of his size had any right to be. Each tug made Legolas' head spin, but at last, Estel escaped the freezing waters and lay shivering on the ice.

"You are safe now, child. Do not attempt to stand," Legolas told him.

From inside his sleeve, Legolas retrieved a length of silvery elven rope and knotted it around Estel's waist.

"Elladan," he called. There came an answering cry from the shore. Legolas threw the end of the rope in the direction of Elladan's voice.

The twins began to pull Estel ashore, and Legolas did not attempt to follow. Despite his bold spirit, Estel was a human child, and a human child would not survive full immersion in a frozen river. Already, the ice was rasping in complaint. With an effort, Legolas fought to recapture strains of river song.

He whispered entreaties to the empty winter air, his tone calm and reassuring, but he was so tired he could not be sure whether he was speaking words at all.

With a frustrated hiss, Legolas bit his cheek hard, filling his mouth with the taste of copper. Slowly, the shadows receded. Bracing one hand against the ice, Legolas turned his mind inward, and hummed faint snatches of discordant melody.

His eyes were closed, but when Estel was finally lifted from the ice, Legolas felt it like a physical release. As the adrenaline drained away, weariness wrapped around him like a thick cloak, muffling the creaking of the ice and Elladan's distant shouting.

In a daze, Legolas rose to his feet. As he stumbled towards the shore, he felt an absurd bubble of laughter fill his lungs.

Oh, Elrond was wrong. There was no need to wait for the Morghul blade to kill him. He was doing a fine job of it himself.

 _Never forget to unstring a bow,_ Thranduil had warned on his fifteenth nameday, presenting him with his first longbow. _Too much strain and the limbs will warp._

 _I am sorry, Father._

The moment Legolas stepped ashore, a huge crack resounded through the air with eager finality. Ice shattered, fracturing into floes that began to slip downstream.

"Are you alright?" Elladan inspected Legolas' anxiously. He spoke softly, as if afraid Legolas might break into a thousand pieces too.

Legolas nodded slowly, but he narrowed his eyes as if he were having trouble focusing on Elladan. "They've gone?"

"Yes. I don't think I've ever seen Elrohir move so fast in my life." Elladan grasped Legolas' arm firmly, but his tone was gentle. "Come on now."

"This is your fault, you know," Legolas said, dropping his head onto Elladan's shoulder. His words were slurring together. "Why did you want to go for a walk?"

"Yes, yes, it's all my fault," Elladan whispered.

Legolas laughed, and it was a terrible sound, harsh and breathy. In slow, faltering steps, they began to make their way back to the Last Homely House.

But barely a hundred yards later, Legolas' brows creased in a light frown. "Elrohir," he said slowly. "Why was Estel allowed to venture as far out onto the river as he did?"

"Elrohir and I were too engrossed in a game," Elladan said. The lie came effortlessly, suffused with the perfect balance of guilt and shame.

Legolas lifted his head, and though his face was still pale - almost translucent in the gathering dusk - the disoriented haze was already fading from his eyes.

"No," Legolas murmured. He studied Elladan's face, and though Elladan did not flinch or otherwise react, something he saw there made him sigh.

"You would not have been so careless unless you had entrusted him to me." Legolas said. His voice was mild as spring wind, but he pressed a hand against his chest with vicious force.

"You were tired - "

"I was _asleep_ , Elladan. I heard nothing until the ice broke." The latter end of Legolas' sentence was swallowed by coughing.

"Legolas - " Elladan ran a hand down Legolas' back, trying to ease his breathing, but the coughs only deepened. Legolas pulled away from Elladan and fell to his knees in the snow, pressing one long sleeve against his lips and shuddering with muted coughs.

Elladan had a sudden vision of Legolas, alone in a passageway in the Elvenking's Halls, accompanied only by flickering candlelight, his slight frame trembling with the effort to keep anyone from hearing as his injury tore him apart.

When the coughing finally subsided, Legolas lowered his arm, and his long grey sleeve came away speckled with blood. Transfixed, Elladan stared, but Legolas only inspected it with almost clinical interest before shaking out his sleeves to hide the bloodstains.

He met Elladan's horrified gaze with a weary smile. "Do not feel too sorry for me, Elladan. I almost killed the heir of Númenor today."

"This extends beyond Estel," Elladan said, his words edged with growing heat. "You will endanger your entire realm if you continue like this. Do you truly think the Woodland Realm would collapse in your absence?"

"No," Legolas said, calmly. "Why do you think I spent the last eighty-two years training Teleglos and Rilithil to lead the archers in my stead? I have negotiated enough trade agreements with the Iron Hills and Esgaroth to last the next century. When my King departs for battle, I appoint a regency council, even though I hold the office of prince regent. The Woodland Realm will not collapse, because I have taken steps to ensure that it will not."

Elladan's face paled. It was a long time before he could speak again.

"You should have taken a ship to the Undying Lands."

"But you know why I do not." Legolas gazed at him expectantly.

"I will hear you say it."

"I am a friend, a comrade-in-arms, a son," Legolas said quietly. The faint, gentle smile that so often lingered on his face dimmed, and was replaced by something hard and true as tempered steel.

"But so long as I am the crown prince of Eryn Galen, I die only in the service of my realm."

* * *

When they stepped into the courtyard of Imladris, Elladan swept towards Estel's rooms without another word. Legolas watched him go, a queer expression on his face. Then he turned to one of the guards who stood watch over the Hall of Fire.

"How is the child?"

The guard bowed low. "The little one was frozen to the bones when he returned with Lord Elrohir. But Lord Elrond himself has tended to him, and he appears to be on the mend."

Legolas' eyes softened. "That is well."

Messaging his temples with his fingertips, Legolas turned towards his own rooms. A century ago, he would have scorned the stairs in favour of the vines that crept up the sides of Imladris' ancient walls. Today, he passed underneath the sweeping arches of her corridors, drifting through the fluttering gossamer drapes like an errant gust of wind.

An eagle was waiting for him on the balcony. He stiffened the moment he saw its sharp silhouette, and took a deep breath, hoping that he was imagining the reproach in its imperious golden eyes. But when Legolas unfurled the messenger scroll, the words he saw, written in the careful cipher the archers used, were painfully bright even in the soft moonlight.

 _Contra flanking failed. Rilithil dead. The King asks for your immediate return._

"Oh."

The eagle cawed impatiently.

"Wait," he said, a little breathlessly. Turning to his study, Legolas lit a match and touched the little scrap of parchment to the flame, watching as it twisted itself to cinders. He then picked up a quill, dipped it in ink, and set it down to write his response, but his hands, normally so deft and steady, shook violently. A minute later he still had not managed a single stroke. Slowly, a drop of ink gathered at the tip of the nib; it dripped down to the paper with agonizing slowness, as if it were not ink, but blood.

Rilithil - his second-in-command. For centuries she had served at his side, sharp-witted and barb-tongued. She had eyes like the brilliant moon for which she been named, eyes that always saw everything too clearly. In the days following his death, Rilithil would have made a fine commander. Eighty-two years of effort, gone in a single poorly planned attack. He had been in the library for two days and two nights, flipping through dusty tomes until Finrod and Fingolfin and Fingon began to blur in his mind, and still it had not been enough.

The Morghul blade awoke with terrible glee, and he staggered against his bureau, fighting to draw breath.

The door creaked open. Legolas grimaced and forced himself upright, clenching his fist into a tight ball of frustration. His fingernails left bloody little crescents on his palm.

"Legolas."

A self-mocking smile spread across Legolas' face, and he turned slowly, tempering the tempest in his eyes until all that was left was the still surface of a wintry sea.

"I am sorry, Elrohir," he said softly.

The son of Elrond stood in the doorway. His face blurred in and out of focus, but Legolas could sense with perfect clarity the fury that emanated from him in waves.

"Sorry?" Elrohir hissed. "Estel almost died, Legolas. I ran faster than the wind and still he was barely breathing by the time Father saw to him."

"I am sorry." Legolas repeated. He quietly reached out behind him for the bureau in an attempt to prop himself up.

"Tell me what happened. Five years ago, I called to you from across a battlefield in the depths of Dol Guldur, I told you to help Elladan. The sounds of the dead and dying filled the air, but still you heard me, and you put an arrow through the orc before it had time to decapitate Elladan. So what happened today?"

"I was careless," Legolas murmured.

"Or perhaps you just did not care enough about a human child. You did not even deign to visit his bedside upon your return - so perhaps your lord father's prejudices have coloured your own judgement!"

As if from a distance, Legolas noted vaguely that he had not seen Elrohir so angry in centuries, not since the day they found Celebrían, battered and broken, at the foot of the Misty Mountains. Elrohir had slaughtered every orc within fifty miles that year, his grey eyes lit with a light that was at once grief-stricken and fey.

"You misunderstand me, Elrohir. It is true I failed to keep him safe, but my mistake pains me no less than it does you."

"Even so, you are keeping something from me," Elrohir said, coldly. "I do not believe that the crown prince of the Woodland Realm to be incapable enough to lose sight of a child. And until you tell me what is wrong with you, you will serve no patrols, and you will not set foot near Estel."

He turned to leave.

Legolas was beyond hearing; Elrohir's last sentences had faded into white noise. Deep inside, the knot of loyalty and kinship and unwavering determination that had sustained him for eighty-two years was fraying. The fluid, linear logic of his once-quick mind was gone, filled only by erratic bursts of jarring pain. He could taste copper on the back of his throat, and through it all he clung only to one thought: I must not let Elrohir be haunted by guilt.

The moment the door swung shut behind Elrohir, Legolas collapsed.


	4. Of Faith and Duty

Elrohir hurried down the stairs, as if, by quickening his footsteps, he could leave the memory of Legolas' sad, wan face in the moonlight behind him. With a strangled howl of mingled irritation and self-disgust, Elrohir stopped short and slammed a fist against the wall. The stones were cool and unfeeling beneath his fingers, damp with the mist of the waterfalls churning below his feet.

"He is safe," Elrohir whispered to himself. "Father and Elladan are tending to him now."

In his mind's eye, Imladris grew alive with the colours of summer. He ran after Estel, who danced ahead, chasing a kite. Estel's laughter filled the air, bright like a robin's song, but when the boy glanced back, it was his mother's tired, silver eyes staring sadly at him out of the Estel's small face.

"No," Elrohir said, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. "Legolas saved him."

Estel was safe, so why were his hands still shaking? Why did he still see empty grey eyes, lit only by the ghostly green light at the bottom of a frozen river? Clenching his teeth, Elrohir forced the image away. A slender figure took its place, as hazy as if viewed through a dusty windowpane, so frail it seemed like the next gust of wind would carry it away.

"I saved him," Elrohir whispered hoarsely to the figure. "This time, I wasn't too late."

Leaning his forehead against the wall, Elrohir closed his eyes, listening only to the sound of blood thundering through his ears. Gradually, as his tumultuous, treacherous imagination burned itself to ashes, his heartbeat slowed. Wearily, he straightened. He could breathe again.

The faint, harsh cry of an eagle rose above the sound of rushing water. Elrohir lifted his head. The cry came again, more agitated this time.

Bemused, Elrohir paused, listening. Hadn't there been an eagle in Legolas' room?

His eyes narrowed. Whirling around, he vaulted up the stairs with blurring speed and threw the heavy oaken door open.

"Manwë above," he whispered, suddenly lightheaded.

Legolas lay sprawled in a tangle of fabric and parchment, unmoving even as an eagle plucked furiously at his collar. His face was bloodless, and deep purple bruises marred the hollows beneath tightly closed eyes. With the gentle mischief and the incorrigible stubbornness of Legolas' waking self absent, Elrohir finally saw Legolas as he was - deeply and utterly exhausted.

He lunged across the room in a single leap. Under the eagle's watchful golden gaze, Elrohir set two fingers beneath Legolas' jaw. As he silently counted the seconds between each beat of the elfling's thready, stuttering pulse, a familiar wave of nausea rose in his throat.

Had he done this? He had known what had happened on the river would take a toll, had seen Legolas standing silently before the balcony, shoulders bowed by some great weight, his figure small against the vastness of the night behind him. Elrohir had wavered, had almost turned back, but in the end, he had stepped over that threshold anyway. And Legolas, who had borne his fury with such quiet restraint, his eyes had looked so tired _,_ had he seen…?

"Shut up," Elrohir growled, breathing raggedly as he bent over Legolas, examining him for wounds with a practiced, efficient hand. He could feel every bone beneath those loose, grey robes. A chill ran through him, and suddenly Elrohir realised why Legolas - who typically donned light, practical tunics that enabled him to move through the trees with ease - had taken to wearing the flowing robes favoured by the Ñoldor.

And yet - he could find no glaring wound that would account for Legolas' pallor, which not even the moonlight could fully mask. This was beyond him. Elrohir swore, cursing Legolas and in particular his absurd predilection for high places. Why in Elbereth's name had he chosen this room, squirrelled away on a pavilion above one of Imladris' tallest waterfalls? Even if he shouted for aid, the nearest guards would be hard-pressed to hear his voice.

Grimly, Elrohir slipped an arm around Legolas' shoulders and another underneath his knees, Ignoring the eagle's squawk of protest, Elrohir lifted Legolas into his arms.

"Elladan?" Legolas said, his voice barely louder than the rasp of falling leaves.

Elrohir glanced down. Legolas' eyelashes trembled like butterfly's wings, and with difficulty, he focused cloudy eyes on Elrohir. His brow wrinkled in confusion. It was only a heartbeat before Legolas' gaze scattered again, like snow in the wind, but Elrohir thought he saw sorrow darken those turbid grey depths, and it cut into him with the cold keenness of a knife.

"Oh," Legolas breathed. Then with surprising firmness, he said, "Set me down."

"A fool's words," Elrohir growled, starting down the stairs as quickly as he dared, careful not to jar Legolas.

"Elrohir." Legolas' voice was pleading. He clutched at Elrohir's collar with thin, shaking fingers, knuckles white with effort. "They… cannot see."

"And I cannot leave you alone, you idiot, do you want to die?" Elrohir said. In his hurry, he had taken a shortcut, and now they were in a fairly deserted section of the House, high above a courtyard on its northeastern side. The glow of the candlelit courtyard warmed the walls through an open window along the corridor, and Elrohir opened his mouth to call out for guards.

"Elrohir," Legolas bit out, his face tightening with pain. "If you call out, I really will die."

"Shut up!" Elrohir's face twisted in the beginnings of a snarl. "You…"

"Elrohir!" Legolas said, despair leaking out around the edges of his words. With a sudden grimace, he jerked forwards, breaking into wet, rattling coughs. Pressing a trembling hand to his chest, Legolas tipped his head back with an effort, gazing at Elrohir with bleak, glassy eyes. Transfixed with horror, Elrohir stared at the bloodstains spreading across the front of his robes.

"Please," Legolas whispered. Blood reddened his lips, but still his grip on Elrohir's collar did not relax.

The moonlight dimmed, blurring, and again, Elrohir was five hundred years ago, kneeling in the darkness deep underground. Glistening arcs of putrid orc-blood splattered across the cave walls and across his face; the slender, limp figure in his arms was not Legolas, it was his mother. Again, he was completely, utterly helpless.

"Fine," Elrohir breathed, his gaze drifting to the far wall and beyond. "Wait here. I will fetch my father."

Sinking to his knees, Elrohir gently set Legolas down, helping him lean carefully against the wall.

"Don't fall asleep," Elrohir said sharply. "You will suffocate on your own blood before anyone finds you."

Legolas' eyes slid closed. "I wouldn't dare," he said, but his voice was already fading. Elrohir's features twisted in a crude approximation of a smile, and then he was vaulting out of the window.

He ran lightly over Imladris' rooftops and ducked into a narrow corridor. As Elrohir rounded the corner, he ran straight into Elrond and Elladan, who were rushing towards Legolas' rooms.

"Father," Elrohir said. His voice sounded faraway, even to himself.

Elrond's eyes were dark with shifting, forbidding shadows, but he nodded at Elrohir, and in that instant, the Lord of Imladris' sharp, serrated gaze softened.

"Take me to him," Elrond said.

Without another word, Elrohir turned, and as he did so, Elladan caught his hand in a fierce, unyielding clasp.

"I tried…" Elrohir managed, suddenly blinking back tears.

"I know," his twin whispered.

* * *

Legolas awoke in a glade darkened by the shadows of sickened trees. Drawing one hand to his chest, Legolas coughed, his breath riming the grass before him with a fine layer of frost. His bones felt like lead. Dazedly, he tried to recall what it was like to run the forest paths of his ancestors, light as a swallow, but the memory was as distant as if it had belonged to someone else.

His gaze wandered up the twisted trunks of surrounding trees. Oak. There were twelve oak trees ringing this glade, and suddenly Legolas gasped from the sharpness of the pain that lanced through his heart. It did not come from the Morghul blade.

Twelve. Elves had awoken in groups of twelve by the Cuiviénen - twelve was the base number, their sacred number. Twelve oak trees stood watch over the grave of the last queen of Greenwood the Great. He knew this place.

Legolas closed his eyes. Then, gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up, fingers damp with mulch and decaying things. His long hair drifted behind him in a phantom breeze, tangled and coming free of his archer's braids. He wore ragged robes, so thinned by wear and grime that even the stag of Oropher embroidered upon his wide sleeves appeared to lower its proud head. But when at last he knelt, shivering like a leaf in the breeze, at the foot of his mother's tomb, he held himself as if he were clad in the finest damask.

"Mother," he murmured, and bowed low.

A dark shadow bloomed into being by his side. _Darkened, despoiled, you have the audacity to appear here?_

"Mother," he said, as if he had not heard. "Your son has come to see you." Back straight, chin held high, he rose shakily to his feet. Pressing his right hand to his heart, Legolas knelt again, beginning an ancient ritual of respect and remembrance.

The shadow sounded amused. _What use is this thin facsimile of honour, elfling?_

The fury of the Morghul blade slammed into him with the strength of an ocean wave, and he was sent sprawling against the elven queen's burial mound. The cloying scent of rot filled his lungs; a thousand slimy legs scuttled over his fingers. Each breath felt like swallowing glass, but still Legolas shoved himself violently upright. He was so faint the ground was no more solid than the sky above.

Ten more times he clasped his hand to his heart and knelt, and ten more times the Morghul blade struck him down. Legolas curled in on himself, cradling frozen hands against his throbbing chest.

 _Sleep, little one_ , the shadow purred. _Here, by your mother's side._

Tears clouded his eyes. The shadow melded into the darkened boughs of the trees, and the mocking laughter of the Ringwraith he had duelled eighty-two years ago echoed through the glade.

 _Let go, elf-prince,_ it hissed. _You are losing. You have already lost._

"Perhaps," Legolas whispered. "But not here."

He had failed to protect his mother whilst she lived, but he would not worry her footsteps as she walked the Halls of Mandos. She would not see him like this, a spectre of the youth she had left behind, Greenwood's most brilliant star.

Exhaling slowly, Legolas pressed one hand to the damp earth and pushed. His head spun from the effort, his vision darkened, and he slumped back to the ground. Panting, without waiting for the world to steady, he tried again. In his mouth, the scent of decay was joined by something sharp and metallic, and the tide of nausea that rose in its wake threatened to pull him under again. Swaying, barely clinging onto consciousness, he struggled to his feet.

He pressed numb fingers against his heart a twelfth time and sank to his knees. Blood trickled down his chin, and dripped quietly onto his long sleeves. A water clock, marking the only passage of time that mattered here. He was too spent to even cough, yet the stag of Oropher on his ragged robes seemed to stand straighter.

"Not here," Legolas repeated. Clods of earth clung to his hair, and his tattered robes hung awkwardly from his thin frame, but his voice was firm with the quiet, commanding tones of a king.

He closed his eyes. "Not yet."

Hoarsely, he began to sing. "Sí vanwa ná, rómello vanwa, Valimar…"

The Ringwraith screeched, and the shadows deepened, leaving the woods to stretch towards him.

His voice flickered like candlelight, the words barely audible even in his own mind. "Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar."

"Nai elyë hiruva," Legolas murmured. "Namárië!*"

* * *

 _Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar!_

 _Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar._

* * *

When he finally woke, it was dawn. Dutifully ignoring the headache that whispered dully behind his temples, Legolas blinked blearily in the slanting rays of morning sun. Slowly, the familiar outline of the ceiling came into focus, and he was tracing the silvery stucco leaves that crept across its arching length when a very loud and pompous screech came from behind his left ear. With a gasp, Legolas lurched upright. He moved too quickly, and his headache protested with a vengeance, swatting him back down.

"You're still here?" he murmured, smiling up at the tufty, upside-down head of the messenger eagle who had almost scared him back to the Halls of Mandos.

The eagle looked very proud of himself.

"Ah," Elladan's mild voice filled the room, sounding distinctly predatory. "Back so soon from visiting Námo? Off with you."

Rounding the bed with alarming speed, Elladan shooed the eagle out the window and began peering at Legolas' eyeballs and pulling at his tongue with more force than Legolas felt was strictly necessary.

"What does this tell you about the state of my health?" Legolas said in a muffled voice as Elladan prodded at his chin.

"Nothing," Elladan said gravely. "Does this hurt?"

With undue enthusiasm, Elladan yanked at Legolas' cheeks until the latter resembled a chipmunk. He sat back and watched with a satisfied air as Legolas rubbed his sore face, wincing.

"Good," Elladan said, his voice bright. Legolas blinked owlishly up at him. "You are not dead."

Legolas nodded, looking reassured. With an exasperated snort, Elladan turned away and began to pour tea. Steam coiled into the air, hiding his eyes, and when he spoke again, his voice was expressionless. "I do not know what bargain you struck with my father. He has said nothing to me, but even so, I can tell. You do not have much time left."

"I know," Legolas said, quietly watching the play of light over the frostbitten windowsill.

With a sigh, Elladan slipped an arm around Legolas' shoulders and helped him sit up. With a soft whisper of thanks, Legolas leaned back against his pillows and took the proffered tea, cradling the cup in a futile attempt to warm his hands.

"It doesn't bother you," Elladan said, his voice calm and cutting.

"No," Legolas murmured, meeting Elladan's gaze evenly. "Not any longer."

His voice was calm, like the glassy surface of a pond, devoid of any ripples, as if they were discussing the outcome of a chess match, or the brewing of elderflower wine. Elladan frowned faintly, and there was sorrow there, coloured with anger and something broaching resignation. Perhaps Elladan himself did not notice, but Legolas saw and pretended not to see.

"What news from my realm?" Legolas said, dropping his gaze to the green depths of his tea cup.

Elladan's voice grew solemn. "Your father successfully routed the assault," Elladan pressed his hand to his heart, "the one that took Lady Rilithil's life. An eagle brought us news last night. The King led the charge himself, on that ridiculous moose of his."

"It is a stag," Legolas said, glancing up, and the bright, true smile that tugged at his lips took Elladan's breath away. Like the winter sun, peeking out from behind the clouds.

"We are told that after an initial retreat of ten miles, the King executed a series of deft manoeuvres and reclaimed the lost territory. Undistracted by news of the fact that you are… exceedingly unwell."

Elladan's tone hardened with the abruptness of a darting dragonfly. "That is why you manipulated Elrohir into keeping your illness a secret, isn't it?"

A moment's silence. Legolas gently turned his cup of tea in his hands. "Yes."

"You know what haunts him still, and so you used your life against him," Elladan said coolly. He sat down at the edge of Legolas' bed, and for a moment his gaze was as keen and discerning as his father's. "What an opportune moment you chose to vomit blood."

"I have wronged him," Legolas' voice was tepid. "So, does the secret remain a secret still?"

"Don't worry," Elladan laughed mirthlessly. "No one saw you as we found you. Father told the court that you overstrained yourself whilst rescuing Estel. As few enough elves can do so much as convince a bud to flower, no one will question it."

" _Hannon le_ ," Legolas murmured, with a faint smile that did not reach his eyes. His eyes - they were the clear depths of a lake frozen over, the only hint of brightness in an otherwise bloodless face. Like still-smouldering cinders, a reminder of a once irradiant fire that had since burned itself away.

"I have never met anyone who behaves so cruelly to those who love them," Elladan said in a low voice. "But do not pretend, my little prince. You are cruellest of all to yourself."

With that, Elladan reached out and pulled Legolas into his arms. Legolas stiffened briefly, blinking away his surprise.

"Why?" Elladan whispered, clutching Legolas tightly to him. "Why? It's not fair. Do you know what they say about you?"

Legolas looked up at him expectantly.

"They say you've run away, that you abandon your country and your people on the brink of a great battle, and are cowering behind Imladris' walls, too afraid to return," Elladan's gaze was scorching, his voice tightening with rage. "You've given your heart's blood to your nation, and this is what you get in return?"

With a soft sigh, Legolas' shoulders bowed almost imperceptibly, and finally, he dropped his head wearily against Elladan's chest.

"I am not angry," Legolas said. "They speak the truth. Elladan, fetch me a quill and some parchment, please. I must write to my father."

"You will do no such thing," Elladan regarded him with disbelief. "You must rest, _tithen las_."

"Why?" For once, Legolas' voice lost its quiet composure and grew blunt. "I am not going to get better, Elladan, and the war will not wait."

Elladan's eyes flashed dangerously, but after a brief pause, he rose to his feet and went to find parchment.

Legolas wrote slowly, pausing every few words to gather his strength, as if afraid his father would read his illness in the weakness of his strokes. But beneath his pale, gaunt hands, the plans for a pincer movement began to take shape. Legolas was fully conscious of Thranduil's aptitude for military stratagems, but even so, he applied himself to the letter with single-minded focus.

No matter how skilled a commander Thranduil was, Legolas would still do his best to keep his father safe.

Elladan did not disturb him. He watched silently, and ached to see those brilliant grey eyes so marred and dull.

"Why can't Father heal you?" Elladan said, his voice muted with anguish, as Legolas set his quill down.

Legolas did not look up. When he spoke, his tone was as detached as if they were discussing a stranger.

"Morghul blades are sentient things, Elladan. Eighty-two years ago, after the raid on Dol Guldur, Rilithil found me senseless, with a long gash down my chest, and the the rest of my battalion dead. I had been stabbed by a Ringwraith, and a fragment of its blade hid itself beneath my breastbone. The Greenwood's healers thought it an ordinary wound and treated it as such.

"I had my suspicions, but by the time I was able to pull myself away from the battlefield and see Lord Elrond, the shard had already woven itself deep into my flesh. He cannot remove it without killing me."

"Eighty-two years…" Elladan whispered, horrified. "You've been resisting the shadow of a Ringwraith for eighty-two years?"

"I do not recommend it," Legolas said, a little of his old impishness sneaking into his tone. "Now, come here," he called warmly to the messenger eagle perched on his windowsill. It regarded him with one suspicious golden eye and slurped down the rest of the mouse-tail dangling from its beak.

"Fly swiftly, my friend," Legolas murmured, as he fastened the letter to the eagle's leg.

Elladan studied him silently, and seemed to understand something, because he only shook his head and began to neatly gather up the abandoned quill, parchment, and ink.

When Elladan left, Legolas was still staring after the eagle, even though it had long since vanished entirely from view.

His gaze was distant and wistful. Like an arrow, it vaulted over Imladris' endless waterfalls, speeding straight and true towards the great beech trees of the east.

* * *

* Author's Note: These are lines from Galadriel's lament in Lórien, because Tolkien's elven poems are real-life magic. The translation has been included in the fic.

Thank you so much to all who stuck by for so long, and I'm very sorry for taking so long between uploads. On the bright side, this fic should be concluded in 1-2 more chapters. :D


	5. Plum Rain

Overnight, the waterfalls beneath Legolas' rooms froze solid. In the crisp, northern wind, Imladris' plum blossoms unfurled. Legolas stood quietly under the eaves, a heavy cloak resting around his shoulders, and looked out over the delicate, tenacious blossoms, their crimson petals crowned with frost.

The wind toyed with the golden strands of his hair, and left the courtyard enveloped in the faint scent of plum blossoms, clean and cold and lovely. Legolas inhaled deeply, smiling softly to himself, and puffed a little breath into his hands to warm them. He had only come out for a short while, but already he felt sleepy.

Touching a hand to his forehead, Legolas breathed out unsteadily and turned his attention inwards. He was contemplating how to speak to Elrohir without being immediately hurled into depths of Moria, when he heard a loud "ah!"

Legolas blinked, and took a step out of the corridor and into the courtyard beyond. "Estel?"

The child retracted a guilty foot and shrank behind a thick cluster of blossoms. He was perched high on a forked branch in a plum tree, and currently trying his best to press himself into the cracks in the tree bark. Legolas' lips twitched in amusement.

"Estel!" Erestor growled, as he came stomping down the corridor. "I said you could take a break, not run away to Lothlórien! Where have you gone, you daft child?"

Estel pressed back even closer against the tree trunk. The heir of Númenor was gifted indeed, if he had managed to to send dignified, scholarly Erestor on the warpath. Even treed, he offered Legolas a cheerful grin, his eyes wide and beseeching.

And Legolas held one finger to his lips, his eyes crinkling into crescent moons as he smiled back.

"Your Highness," Erestor said with stiff politeness, although it was evident that he was preoccupied with thoughts of feeding Estel to giant spiders. "Have you seen Estel?"

Legolas shook out his sleeves and clasped his hands thoughtfully. "Not recently. Have you misplaced him again?"

Erestor stared hard at the small footprints that wound across the snow-lined courtyard, and then at Legolas, who smiled sunnily back at him. A muscle spasmed in his jaw.

"I see," Erestor said, with a formal bow. "I must be on my way, then."

He stormed away, muttering under his breath, and the wind carried snatches of his words back to Legolas.

"Teach him, he said… It will be simple, he said… That child has already taken at least four centuries off my life…"

Legolas chuckled, and his laughter quickly faded into a coughing fit. Breathlessly, Legolas messaged his breastbone.

"He's gone," Legolas called out to the little fugitive in the plum tree.

A pair of bright eyes peered out from around the bough. "Really?"

"Really," Legolas said, drifting lightly over the snow. He stopped beneath Estel's tree and tipped his head up. "Would you like to come down?"

There was an embarrassed silence. "I don't think I can," Estel said, his voice muffled.

"Oh," Legolas paused, somewhat stupefied. This particular predicament had never occured to him before.

"Can you come up and fetch me?" Estel asked innocently, and Legolas gave a helpless little huff.

He studied the tree and came to the resigned conclusion that if he tried to climb it, he would likely become the first wood-elf to die stuck in a tree.

"It's cold up here," Estel said, shivering, and Legolas' brow furrowed with concern. Suddenly, he sympathised deeply with Erestor—the daft child hadn't bothered to recover fully from his excursion on a frozen river before getting himself stranded yet again.

"Wait," Legolas said, beginning to head back across the courtyard. "I will call one of your brothers."

Estel shivered again, and this time he slipped. With a yelp of surprise, he scrabbled back up the trunk. A clump of snow, dislodged by his flailing hands, plummeted to the ground below and made him jump.

Legolas hurried back to the tree, stumbling in his haste. He held out his arms and looked up anxiously at the little boy.

"Be careful!" Legolas chided, trying to catch his breath. He could feel white hair sprouting up along his hairline.

Estel wrapped himself more firmly around the bough, but now, given his very Mannish propensity for incredible feats of clumsiness, Legolas didn't dare leave him alone. Legolas spun in worried circles beneath the tree, his arms outstretched in an attempt to catch Estel in case he fell.

Estel was beginning to regret his impulsiveness. Below him, Legolas stood quietly. The sun cast his long, slender shadow across the snow, where it overlapped with the straight, proud lines of the plum tree. Together, they waited in silence, the human boy and his elven guardian.

At last, Estel's hands grew numb from the cold. Too tired to tighten his loosening grip, Estel toppled from the tree, and finally, Legolas moved.

He caught Estel around the waist, drew him into his embrace, and together, they fell into the snow. Estel popped up almost immediately. Aside from a jolted elbow, he hadn't felt anything at all; Legolas had shielded him from the brunt of the impact.

Beside him, Legolas was slowly sitting up. He was panting slightly from the effort, and each breath was wet and heavy, as if there were liquid in his lungs. Estel's eyebrows scrunched together.

"You're not well?" Estel said in a small voice.

Legolas reached out and gently pressed a long finger against the space between Estel's eyebrows, smoothening out his frown.

"Foolish child," Legolas murmured, his eyes dancing. "That is not for you to worry about."

The wind rustled through the branches overhead, and carelessly scattered a handful of blossoms into the air. In the plum blossom rain, Legolas smiled down at him. He was thin, even frail, but there was something hard and unyielding in his bones. Sunlight caressed his cheek, and brought out the warmth in his expressive grey eyes, as exquisite as if traced by an artist's hand.

Estel stared, spellbound, and suddenly sprung forward, engulfing Legolas in a fierce hug. He felt Legolas stiffen momentarily, and then a light hand ran through his hair. Legolas smelled like pine, sharp, clean, and brisk. In his arms, Estel felt very safe.

"Thank you," Estel mumbled into Legolas' robes.

Gently, Legolas cuddled Estel close. At length, he made an odd humming sound that sounded more like a sigh, and said, "You are very welcome, Estel."

"They say you hurt yourself trying to save me," Estel said anxiously, tipping his head back to look into Legolas' eyes.

"Hmm, not quite," Legolas said lightly. "I have been feeling poorly for a long time, Estel."

"Why? Did the orcs wound you?"

Legolas flicked his nose. "No."

"Giant spiders, then?"

"No."

"… the bears that are as big as dragons?"

Legolas started, and a soft laugh escaped him. "No."

"But it was because you were fighting, weren't you?" Estel persisted, growing sad. "Everyone goes to fight. And sometimes they don't come back."

"There are some things you must do," Legolas said quietly. "Even if you know they may lead to death. That is duty, Estel, though some even call it fate."

With his words, images rose unbidden to Estel's mind, sights and sounds he had never encountered before, and yet somehow it felt like he had known them forever and a day. It was the wingbeats of crows flying before the yellow winter moon, it was a bone-white city glittering diamond-bright in the summer sun. It was the murmur of leaves unfurling on the cusp of spring, and the thrum of running water threading through solid rock. It was all of these together, and in their wake rose an eerie song that teased at his ear and slipped through his fingers.

Legolas' face was so young, unlined by the years, but in his eyes, Estel saw the falling leaves of nine hundred autumns.

After a long pause, Estel shook his head emphatically, "You're wrong."

"Oh?"

"Yes," Estel said, his features blurring in the light. Legolas raised a hand to shield his eyes, but Estel's figure only grew hazier still, and suddenly it was as if he were seeing not the boy, but the man he would become. "I'll learn to protect you. You and Elladan and Elrohir and Mother and _Ada_ …"

Estel's voice was earnest, bright with a conviction that was old and young at once. "When I grow up, I will keep you safe."

It was an outlandish promise, one easily dismissed as the follies of a child, but Legolas didn't laugh. Slowly, as if in a trance, Legolas reached out and caressed Estel's face with a cold hand, and found that he could not speak.

In the end, it was Estel who tugged at his sleeve and chirruped, "Let's go."

As they made their way across the courtyard, Estel glanced down, and his eyes widened. He worried his lip.

He couldn't yet understand why it so dismayed him to see two sets of footprints in the snow.

* * *

For three days, Elrohir avoided him like the plague. At last, Legolas found Elrohir sequestered in a forgotten corner of the library, sprawled languidly across an armchair, his nose buried in a book. Elrohir was nestled in a puddle of late afternoon sunlight, and it outlined the long, lean lines of his profile, the almost rakish arch of his eyebrows. Silhouetted against the valley below, he looked like a figure from within a painting.

He was also holding his book upside-down.

"Elrohir," Legolas said quietly.

Elrohir's brows knitted together as if in deep thought. Without looking at Legolas, he said, "I'm busy."

"Ah," Legolas hummed, and promptly turned to the bookshelf on his left. He brushed a light hand over the dusty spines of the old tomes that lived there, selected one after some thought, and took a seat by Elrohir's side.

As he approached, Elrohir twitched unconsciously, as if contemplating whether or not to throw himself out of the window. Squaring his shoulders, Elrohir set his jaw grimly, as if preparing for a great battle, but whatever he was waiting for did not come. Legolas curled up and began to read, propping up his cheek with one idle hand, and for a time there was nothing but the occasional swish of turning pages.

Elrohir shifted uncomfortably in his armchair, briefly considered stealing away, and then resisted the impulse to slap himself. Desertion in the face of the enemy did not befit a son of Elrond. He shot Legolas a probing glance, but the latter appeared to be engrossed in his book, and did not notice.

Elrohir gave up first.

"Alright, stop pretending," he said crankily. "I know all of the books on that shelf. How interesting can a treatise on the Hobbits' black market for mushrooms really be?"

Legolas closed his book with a snap, eyes glittering, and already Elrohir began to regret having spoken.

"I am sorry, Elrohir," Legolas' voice was low and steady. "I was wrong to put Estel at risk by concealing the full extent of my injury from you."

"I…" Elrohir's lips twisted in a bitter smile. "But you aren't sorry for keeping it a secret, are you?"

He thought he saw sadness dart through Legolas' eyes. "No."

"What if you had suffered an attack during an ambush? During a raid? How many lives would you have cost your kinsmen?" Elrohir's words sharpened with anger. "Your soldiers deserve a commander they can depend on, not one who might collapse in the thick of battle!"

"You are reckless, Legolas," he hissed. "By what right do you gamble with the lives of those around you?"

Legolas paled, and for a heartbeat Elrohir thought he might faint. But Legolas only straightened his shoulders and bowed his golden head.

"I know," he said hoarsely. "At first, it happened only during winter. Once, if at all. Later, I was always able to get away before it became a problem on the battlefield. I thought I could control it. But this year…"

"Oh, Legolas," Elrohir said wearily, "why do you always think that you must do everything yourself?"

Legolas' sudden burst of laughter made Elrohir jump. It was piercing, coloured bleak.

"You did not see my father the year we lost my mother," Legolas said in an empty voice. "He nearly killed himself, did you know that? I was barely a century old then, and afterwards I…"

He had been only a slender sapling of the forest then, and overnight, he became the only thing holding up the war-scarred skies of the Woodland Realm. Legolas read petitions on Thranduil's behalf, wrote decrees in Thranduil's hand, fought battles in Thranduil's name. It was then when people had begun to call him sun-prince, the Greenwood's most brilliant star, but he couldn't bear to think back to that year. The only thing that had chased him through the centuries since was the memory of his father's blank, staring eyes.

"… I couldn't leave him alone," Legolas said, a little breathlessly, because of the many complex, interwoven threads that bound him to Middle-earth, this was strongest one of all. "I stayed because I thought I could control it, but I was stupid, arrogant—"

He struggled to catch his breath, and alarmed, Elrohir rose to his feet, because Legolas was breathing in irregular, shallow pants, like a fox caught in a snare.

"—and Rilithil," Legolas' voice was an anguished cry, "Rilithil should not have died! Ah!"

Leolgas doubled over, curling his hand against his chest with an agonised moan, and Elrohir almost stopped breathing. He made an involuntary, vehement gesture, as if to cross over to Legolas' side, but his feet were rooted to the spot. In the end, he couldn't take a single step forwards.

"Legolas," Elrohir said shakily, white as paper. "Legolas, don't scare me. Shall I fetch Father?"

Even dazed, Legolas heard the real fear in his voice. With a grimace, Legolas forcibly swallowed the blood he could taste at the back of his throat.

What was he doing? He hadn't come here to do this, when was the last time he had lost control like this?

Black spots swam at the edge of his sight, there was an odd, malicious humming in his ears, and savagely, Legolas dug his nails into his arm. If he fainted now, it was all over. Elrohir would carry this with him for the rest of eternity.

Sure enough, as the humming faded, he heard Elrohir saying wildly, "… I was jesting, Legolas, don't take it to heart. Legolas, please…"

His words were a stake, piercing deep into Legolas' heart. Shuddering faintly, Legolas straightened. Even before he managed to fully return to himself, his lips were already curving in an apologetic smile.

"Don't be afraid, Elrohir. I'm alright."

Elrohir looked at him as if he were seeing a ghost. From somewhere deep inside, the Ringwraith's spectre cackled.

 _See? And you have the temerity to call yourself Protector of the Realm? You do not know how to protect, elfling, only how to destroy._

Elrohir sank back into his armchair, burying his face in his hands. His wrath had vanished like rain on sun-baked stones.

"And by what right do I judge you?" Elrohir whispered. "I wasn't there to help you, I let you shoulder this burden alone, and now I stand by and condemn you?"

"Stop," Legolas said. He was still ashen, but suddenly his eyes were the furious, imperious grey of the Sundering Seas. "Don't say that, Elrohir. Never say that."

"I should have been there to help you," Elrohir said blankly, and he seemed to be staring right through Legolas, his gaze lost in the years that lay behind them both.

"None of this is your fault, Elrohir. Do you hear me?" Legolas rose to his feet, stumbled once, and went to Elrohir's side. Unseeing, Elrohir continued to stare straight ahead.

"Whatever happened to me had nothing to do with you," Legolas said angrily. "You couldn't have known, and you couldn't have changed anything!"

Elrohir stirred then, his brow furrowing.

"How do you know?" he said, looking up at Legolas, his eyes wide and childlike and dark with sorrow.

A cold hand took his. Legolas' touch was like ice, as if the winter snows had sunk deep into his bones, and yet Elrohir found that he couldn't quite bring himself to pull away.

"Look at me, Elrohir. I am not Lady Celebrían," Legolas' voice was very soft.

"I know," Elrohir said mechanically.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you insist on being so conceited, you thick-skulled donkey?" Legolas said evenly.

Elrohir's head snapped up. "What?"

"Am I wrong?" Legolas was gazing at him steadily. "Somehow, you have gotten it into your head that the great Elrohir Elrondion is single-handedly responsible for the welfare of all elves west of Aman."

Elrohir's eyes flashed, and he pushed Legolas roughly away from him. "You don't know what you're saying," he muttered.

"No?" Legolas said tepidly. He had moved back a step, and only a single step, before standing firm. "Why else are you so eager to snatch the blame for matters entirely beyond your control?"

Elrohir shook his head in vexed annoyance. "Legolas, that is not what this is about."

"I think it is," Legolas lifted his golden head challengingly. "This path I walk, I walk because I was born to the House of Oropher, and because I live in a time of war. Unless you could have contrived for me to have been born a field mouse, or perhaps a garden snail, I don't see how any of this is your fault."

Elrohir clenched his jaw, and did not speak.

"So look at me, Elrohir," Legolas said quietly. "I have guarded the borders of Greenwood the Great for eight centuries. Do you think the elfling you carried on your shoulders nine hundred years ago is the same elfling still?"

Gone was the gentle, sickly archer who ran after swans and defaced Imladris' windows with drawings of acorns. In his eyes, Elrohir saw someone who could stand at the head of armies.

"No." It was a word softly dropped.

"Then trust me," Legolas said, a soft, bright smile touching his lips, "and forgive yourself. The choices I have made, Elrohir, they are mine alone to bear."

Elrohir glowered sullenly at the bookshelf behind Legolas' ear, as if bent on burning a hole through the wood with the force of his glare.

"So this is what they teach you in the Greenwood?" he finally growled.

Legolas blinked, befuddled.

"All this cunning eloquence and scheming trickery?" Elrohir continued. He was puffing up with rage, like a cat with its fur standing on end.

"Wha—"

Promptly, Elrohir pounced. He gently tackled a startled Legolas backwards into his armchair, and began raining blows down on his head and shoulders. Elrohir's expression was fierce and flinty, as if he were staring down a giant spider, but there was no force behind his punches.

"You little fox, do you find it very amusing to scare me half to death?"

"Ouch! Elrohir, my nose—"

"That is the least of your worries, princeling. By the time I'm through with you—"

"Elrohir, we left this madness behind centuries ago!"

"No matter whether you are nine or nine hundred years old, I can still beat the living daylights out of you!"

"Help! A kinslaying in the library! Oof—"

* * *

On the last day of _hrivë_ , winter rains pierced the thick mists that wreathed the house of Elrond, lining the wind with the cold, bracing scent of renewed earth, and Elrohir left on a patrol to Imladris' western borders. As plump raindrops bowed the nodding _niphredil_ , the wind laughed and swept westwards, accompanying the sound of receding hoofbeats.

From his pavilion above the waterfall, Legolas watched Elrohir go. The vague circles of lantern light clouded his sight with shifting shadows; he could no longer clearly discern the shapes in the valley below. All the same, Legolas stood by the window, quietly listening to the falling rain.

A blast of wintry air rushed through the unlatched window, and he shivered. Before long, he was bent over at the waist, one hand braced against the wall, shaking with violent coughs that seemed intent on tearing him open from inside out. The vial of _athelas_ draught that Elrond had brewed for him was still steaming away on the windowsill, but Legolas did not reach for it.

His coughing grew wet at the edges, and by the time it withered away, there was blood dripping down his chin. Legolas tried to blink away the darkness that lingered at the edge of his vision, but this time it refused to dissipate, and as it deepened, the old wound on his chest began to burn anew. It was a dull, ponderous pain now. Strange, had he ever thought otherwise?

All throughout, the rain continued to thrum a steady beat against the eaves. Quietly, Legolas settled down on the cool stone floor and closed his eyes.

At last, he spoke, his voice filling with cold, regal authority.

"Come out."

* * *

* Author's Note:

We're almost done! :D


	6. Of Beginnings and Ends

**Warning** : The first bit of this chapter includes mentions of self-harm/suicide, so please give this a pass if it sounds triggery!

* * *

Slowly, the shadows began to drain from the corners of the dimly lit room. They pooled before him, swirling and stretching until a tongue of darkness reared out of the gloom. It was little more than a ragged, translucent tear in the air, so faint it almost seemed to disappear when he turned his head, but for the second time in eighty-two years, the Ringwraith's shadow rose before him.

Resting his cheek against the back of a hand, Legolas regarded it quietly. His grey gaze was clear and bottomless, like the forest pools that lay at the roots of the great trees of his homeland, holding reflections of the world gone by.

"Yes," he said, his voice barely rising above the patter of rain. "I thought I might be able to see you again."

 _Of course,_ the shadow taunted, swaying sinuously against the far wall. _Now you walk the line between the living and the dead, sun-prince._

There was a queer light in Legolas' eyes. It might even have been the bright gleam of tears, and it was gone in the next blink.

 _What a fool you are, elfling,_ the shadow sneered. _You ruined yourself for your people, and still they do not love you! Gone for the winter, and already they are losing heart. Once, you were the Woodland Realm's finest archer, her proudest son. You walked the paths known only to wild things, your footsteps heard only by the rain and the wind. And now?_

"Now I go to the Halls of Mandos," Legolas said quietly. "Whilst you languish on in the world of wraiths, a king of men reduced to a mere hunting dog. So, tell me, of the two of us, who is the more pitiful one?"

Like a distant roll of thunder, a low cackling reverberated through his mind, rising and falling like the tide, until at last the harsh, dissonant sounds of the shadow-creature's laughter seemed to burrow deep beneath his skin, into every corner of his consciousness.

Suddenly seized by a burst of wilfulness, Legolas clenched his jaw tight and refused to cough. Fresh blood seeped from the corner of his mouth and trailed blossoming crimson stains across his humble grey robes.

The shadow watched with relish. _Few can command the Bruinen, my little prince,_ it said suddenly.

Breathing laboredly, Legolas managed a faint chuckle. "If so, I am not amongst their number."

 _Oh, no, little leaf,_ the shadow purred. _I saw the ice that day hold fast for you._

"Then it took pity on a dying cripple," Legolas said, unmoved. "I confess I was surprised it did not shatter under your burdensome weight."

 _You lie!_ The shadow's familiar, cloying voice was shrill with triumphant glee. _How much you have lost! Tell me, elfling, of all elves born to Middle-Earth since the last age, you heard Ilúvatar's song clearest of all, did you not?_

"And what would you know of Ilúvatar's song?" Legolas pointed out mildly. There was disdain in the proud arch of his eyebrows, and defiance in the tilt of his golden head, but his hands, which had been resting neatly in his lap, trembled.

The shadow writhed with renewed mirth. _What does it feel like to struggle to do so much as tread unmarked over freshly fallen snow, when what others struggled with always came so easily to you? You should have come with me when I first called, all those years ago. Oh, Laiqualassë…_

Slowly, Legolas curled a hand against his breastbone. "Do not use that name."

 _… Laiqualassë, you once burned with all the brilliance of the midday sun!_

For a heartbeat, Legolas' gaze grew hazy, as if straying into the intervening years between then and now. Swelling, the shadow-creature grew to loom over Legolas' thin figure, an ocean wave poised to fall.

 _Come with me to the wraith-world,_ it crooned, _and you will suffer no longer. Great and powerful is my lord, he who granted me eternal life and terrible power. He can return to you what you have lost, and more besides._

At length, the soft strains of Legolas' laughter filled the air.

"And what are his gifts worth to the Eldar, the firstborn Children of Ilúvatar?" Legolas said mildly. He was smiling faintly, but the contempt in his eyes mirrored the savage insolence of the storm outside. "When what Sauron can give me is only a corrupt mimicry of that which I already have?"

A sudden flash of lightning forked through the sky, its harsh light momentarily stripping back the shadows that hid Legolas' ashen face. He looked no more substantial than the mist outside his window, fragile enough to be scattered to the four corners of the world by the wind alone, but the glance he cast up at the sky was almost dismissive. There was a deep rumble of thunder, low and menacing, and the veil fell again.

 _And what have you left?_ the shadow hissed _. How much you have lost, sun-prince!_

"Yes, so you have been saying for the past eighty-two years."

 _Eighty-two years…_ the shadow hissed. _For eighty-two years, to protect your feä, that precious, noble heart of yours, you fed me your hroä. And to what end? Soon, elfling, you will have nothing left to give. Your body will wither and your spirit will sicken, and one day when you can no longer tell what is real and what is not, I will call and you will answer…_

With a light shake of his head, Legolas rose to his feet. Even ill as he was, Legolas crossed the flagstones as silently as if he were merely a skylark who had stolen in through the unlatched windows.

There was a letter lying on his desk, penned in his fluid, court-trained hand.

 _Too wild,_ his tutors had once complained of his penmanship, as Legolas stood before his father and shuffled his feet. _Like an unfettered stallion! Completely unbefitting a prince of the Sindar!_

Thranduil had laughed.

 _Oh, he is no Sindarin prince._ There was pride in Thranduil's handsome features, and those regal blue eyes, which so often flashed with the lightning-sharp caprice of a monarch, were warm as he looked upon his son. _He is a child of the forest. There is a touch of the forest in him, as with all wild things._

And then he had swept Legolas into his arms and tickled him until Legolas was breathless with laughter.

Legolas skimmed his fingers over the letter. As he traced the slender Tengwar characters, his face softened with a light that belonged to mist-mantled mornings spent practicing archery by the River Running, and the airy halls of his childhood, wreathed in vines and blossoms of stone.

A stolen moment, it was there and gone, and then the quiet, measured calm that he so often bore settled over his features again like a mask. Inside his head, the shadow-creature was still speaking, but its voice seemed to come from very far away, like the flow of water deep underground, muddled and indistinct.

A long white knife lay beside the letter. Lethal and elegant, subtle patterning wove along its keen blade, like the branching streams of the River Running, or the slender tendrils of a vine. Legolas rested a light hand on its bone-white hilt. At his touch, the harsh gleam of steel seemed to take on a warmer, almost docile cast.

"I lied, Elladan," Legolas murmured. A smile stole across his face, daylily-brief and just as breathtakingly bright, and yet as it faded there was no beauty in it, only a desolate loneliness.

"I don't want to die."

Then, without hesitation, his hand tightened around the hilt and he plunged the knife towards his own heart.

 _Stop!_

The shadow-creature's frenzied wail split his head—the knife fell—and in the same breath his door shuddered with urgent rapping.

"Legolas! News from the Greenwood!"

Something feral darted through Legolas' eyes. For a heartbeat, it seemed as though he might pretend not to have heard, but at last his face twisted with anguish; he stilled.

Blood trickled down his hand; the blade had already bitten hungrily into his flesh.

"Legolas?" Elladan's strained voice rose above the storm, "Legolas, come quickly! It's your father."

* * *

"Be careful, Legolas," Elladan called, running after Legolas as the latter hurried down the stairs to Elrond's study, steely-eyed and wan, "You'll hurt yourself!"

Abruptly, Legolas stopped at the edge of a staircase landing, one hand braced against the wall, panting. Elladan reached him just as the last of his resolve gave way. Bonelessly, Legolas slid down the wall.

Elladan seized him around the waist, holding him up. "Legolas!"

But Legolas' unfocused gaze slipped away from him. In a moment of complete, all-consuming terror, Elladan thought he saw in Legolas' grey eyes the distant white shores of the utmost west.

Elladan buried his face in Legolas' golden hair. "Oh, _tithen las_ , you cannot lose yourself," he whispered. Gritting his teeth, Elladan pushed on, "Your people have need of you. I have need of you!"

In his arms, Legolas trembled. Wordlessly, he raised his head, looking at Elladan with an expression so full of childlike bewilderment that Elladan's own vision blurred with tears.

"Let's go," Elladan said hoarsely. Bending slightly, he made to sweep an arm beneath Legolas' knees, but shrinking back, Legolas shook his head stubbornly. Elladan watched helplessly as Legolas stumbled away from him, and after almost falling twice, struggled upright.

"Will he live?" was the first question Legolas asked Elrond.

Elrond was standing behind his desk, still examining the missive they had received from Galion, the butler of the woodland king. He glanced up, his keen eyes sweeping over Legolas. If anything, his eyebrows knitted together more tightly.

"The warg did not sever the main artery in his leg," Elrond said heavily, "but Thranduil's condition is very dire, Legolas. He has spent the last few days drifting in and out of delirium."

Elladan looked anxiously at Legolas, but the younger elf only tightened his jaw. The lines of his face were hard, cold almost to the point of cruelty. "And what of Lord Thalon, General of the Army?"

"The sudden orc offensive took them by surprise," Elrond said. "In defending your father, Lord Thalon was wounded by three arrows and struck down. He fell into a gorge, and has not yet been found."

"Took them by surprise?" Legolas said, his lips curving in a bitter smile. "How many orcs are on the march?"

"Six thousand," Elladan said. More than all the elves that lingered here still. Tightly, Legolas shut his eyes.

Elladan watched him bleakly. He knew precisely how long it had been since a force of such size had pressed north from Dol Guldur. Eighty-two years ago, the dark armies had oozed forth with Khamûl the Ringwraith at their head, and Legolas Thranduilion had ridden to meet them.

The time of the elves was past. They were fading, and still the Nameless Enemy advanced, a poisoned spring without end.

 _Eru above, he does not deserve this. None of them do. If this is your mercy, then I stand before you and shudder._

"My lord," Legolas said, his voice low and clear. "I leave at dawn for the Woodland Realm."

"Oh, Legolas," Elrond said sadly, and Elladan heard his father's unspoken words. Legolas was so ill—and yet Elladan knew that in this decision, his illness was immaterial. With Thranduil gravely wounded, Legolas was regent. As regent, and as Legolas, he would return to his people, even if he had to drag himself back to the Greenwood on his hands and knees.

"My father is waiting for me," Legolas said simply. Already, he was shedding the infirm for the precise, military bearing of the prince, his posture as upright as that of a young pine. Against all reason, Elladan allowed himself to hope.

He thought his father might protest, but Elrond cast Legolas a long, considering look, and in the end all he said was, "Glorfindel has tarried in Mithlond for long enough, wouldn't you agree?"

"You are gracious, my lord," Legolas said quietly, inclining his head. "The Woodland Realm shall be grateful for Lord Glorfindel's wisdom and valour."

He turned to the great map of Arda that occupied one entire wall of the study. "Lord Calemír will have assumed the position of General of the Army in Thalon's absence. He has managed to hold the orcs at the Narrows of the Forest?"

"Yes, but Galion writes that they cannot maintain their position for long," Elladan said. He tapped the map. "Thalon's son, Mallos, is pulling back to set up an ambush here, two miles north of the Narrows."

"Mallos has the makings of a great commander," Legolas said, but he looked troubled.

"What is wrong?"

"He is young and rash," Legolas said. "And the streams here are too easily cut off. I fear that his lack of experience will allow the enemy to encircle him, and if they do, his battalion will die of thirst, not at the hands of any orcs."

As he sifted through battle stratagems, Legolas seemed to leave the Morghul-poison behind. Once again, he became the elf who could race the wind and strike a dragonfly's wing at a hundred paces, who had watched over his homeland for centuries on end and spoke the tongue of the Bruinen; the Greenwood's most brilliant star.

Thranduil had raised his son well. In the place of that sweet, headstrong elfling stood an incisive warrior-prince, mellow as warm jade. But as he gazed upon Legolas' small face, pinched with weariness, Elrond wished with all his heart that Legolas could have remained that sweet, headstrong elfling, reckless and bright and fearless, for all the centuries to come.

"… vastly outnumbered," Elladan was saying. "Do you have a plan?"

"Some ideas," Legolas murmured, absently trailing his fingers across the map.

Elladan considered this. "I would feel much better if you stopped looking like particularly corporeal wraith," he decided. "If you die before we win, you'll kill us all."

Legolas blinked. "Elladan?"

"If I find myself in the Halls of Mandos, I'll tell your mother you once used her favorite hair pin as a toothpick for your warhorse," Elladan warned. Briskly, he turned to Elrond and fell to one knee, clasping a hand to his heart. "My lord, I beg leave to accompany Legolas Thranduilion to Greenwood the Great."

Stunned, Legolas stared at him. A small, fond smile flickered over his lips, fleeting and immeasurably warm.

"No," Elrond's voice was cool and detached. "You may not go."

And Elladan, gentle, sweet Elladan, shook his head, his eyes flashing with dark mutiny. "My lord—"

"Elladan Elrondion," Elrond said, in a quiet tone that brooked no argument. "Attend me."

Biting back the words on his tongue, Elladan bowed, "Yes, my lord."

"Elrond Eärendilion, by the grace of Eru Ilúvatar, of Imladris and Beleriand of old, have made and created and by these decrees do make and create Elladan Elrondion acting Lord of Imladris."

Elladan grew rigid with shock. But his was an immemorial line of kings _,_ and something of the ancient wisdom of his sires touched him then—understanding came to his eyes; he did not speak. Instead of bowing under the weight of the responsibility he now bore, his shoulders straightened, and when Elrond passed to him the Great Seal of Imladris, Elladan met his father's gaze unwaveringly.

"Legolas, how many warriors do you need?" Elrond said.

"Only fifteen, my lord. We ride light and fast," was the calm, certain answer.

"Elladan Elrondion, arm and furnish fifteen warriors with enough provisions for the journey. Send an eagle to Glorfindel, and another to Elrohir. They are to gather their warriors and make haste to Greenwood the Great. They will ride with Legolas Thranduilion to war."

"Yes, my lord." Pressing a hand to his heart, Elladan said solemnly, "On Elrohir's behalf, I thank you."

Elrohir, who, behind that careless rakishness, asked only for a chance to protect those he loved.

The young Lord of Rivendell rose, his stiff formality falling away, "And you, father?"

"I ride for Thranduil's halls tonight," Elrond said, and some of the impetuous, daring light that had attended him when he had stood at the gates of Barad-dûr, at Gil-Galad's side, returned to him then. "Once, I promised his queen that I would keep an eye that stubborn, hot-tempered fool she married. For two millennia I have honoured that promise, I would not let Thranduil make a liar of me now."

"Go," he said to the two young elves. "Much lies before you."

As Elladan vanished out the door, Elrond called after Legolas, "A word, please."

The prince turned, his eyes questioning.

"Ai, little one," Elrond sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Suddenly, he looked every one of his six thousand and six hundred years. "What have you done to yourself?"

With the delicacy of one treading on thin ice, Legolas said, "My lord, I do not understand."

"I can smell the blood, Legolas," Elrond said tepidly. "You hide it beneath the scent of athelas, but you forget that I am not my son."

With that, Elrond dropped his gaze and went to the great chest of drawers standing quietly in the corner of the room. Wild creatures hid their pain fiercely, and Legolas was no different. Forcibly pulling away the hand he clutched to his wound was itself a different kind of torment, and Elrond did not press further.

Oaken, almost as tall as Elrond himself, the chest of drawers brimmed with a veritable army of glass jars, each filled with herbs, painstakingly dried and carefully sorted. Dropping a few sprigs of yarrow into an awaiting mortar, Elrond began to grind them into a paste.

"You do not have the strength to cross the High Pass, Legolas," Elrond said, as he intently assembled a poultice.

Legolas' voice was soft, a mere wisp of smoke. "I know."

"What will you do?"

"I have something it wants. I intend to make a deal."

Elrond looked up sharply, the pestle in his hand forgotten.

"I must go, my lord." Legolas was gazing steadily at him. "I know that my people are strong, that we have many capable commanders, that Lord Glorfindel is wiser than I could ever hope to be, that perhaps, at this very moment, reinforcements march north from Lothlórien. Even so, I must return. Can you understand, my lord?"

Setting down the pestle, Elrond neatly wiped his hands free of herb scraps and stepped out from behind his desk. A flash of trepidation crossed Legolas' face. In that heartbeat, he became an elfling again, afraid of another scolding and so impossibly young.

Slowly, gently, Elrond lifted a hand and tucked a wisp of Legolas' soft, golden hair behind his ear. Bright as wintersweet, it was, even now, still proudly bound back in the braids of an archer.

"But this…" Elrond's voice carried the weight of the ages. "You are hollow on the inside, _tithen las_. Even if you succeed, your _hroä_ will not be able to endure for long."

A frayed rope, suddenly snapped taut, can only break.

"One month," Legolas said with sudden ferocity, and Elrond thought of a fiery little fox cloaked in woodland shadows. "I need only one month."

"In exchange for your life, and more besides?"

"Considering how tattered I am in body and in spirit, I think I may have the better end of the deal," Legolas said, faint mischief flitting through his eyes.

"Legolas!"

"My lord!" Legolas said, smiling brightly at him. "For nine hundred years I have walked these lands. I have no right to be greedy for more."

 _And why not, my child?_ Elrond thought, and in his mind's eye he again saw nine figures, walking the shoulders of Caradhras. A king, a white tree upon his breast. Green woods, grey ships, and amid it all, the lithe figure of an elf garbed in green and brown.

Like ghostly flames, the images flickered and danced and vanished again, and not for the first time, Elrond was seized by a sudden, uncharacteristic rush of bitterness. Why show him in all its vivid glory this lost future? To make the pain at having forsaken it all the sharper?

"You are certain?" Elrond said evenly, careful to keep the grief from his voice.

"I am."

 _I am_. Millenia ago, his brother Elros had chosen to accept the Gift of Men, and Elrond had asked him the same question. Elros had replied with that same quiet, unyielding resolve in his voice, and it was his laughing ghost Elrond saw as he touched a hand to Legolas' brow and said, "Go well, Laiqualassë of the Greenwood. May your arrows find their mark, and the stars forever shine upon your face."

Closing his eyes, Elrond bowed his head and rested his forehead against Legolas' own. He held him close, as he had once done when a curious little elfling had strayed into Imladris all those centuries ago, set down roots, and never quite left.

Elrond could see him now, balancing easily on the limb of a great oak, chattering excitedly to a captivated audience of squirrels. The Lord of Imladris had been on his way to a council meeting that day, but still he had slowed to watch. Legolas had waved happily down at him, grey eyes alive with laughter.

 _Lord Elrond, Lord Elrond! Look at me! Look what I can do!_

"Dear one," he murmured. "I wish you the very best."

* * *

Even before he left Elrond's study, Legolas felt the tears well up inside him, an unruly river that threatened to leap its banks. Hurriedly, he all but fled down the corridor, clutching the little leaf bundle that held Elrond's poultice, nodding curtly to the elves who passed him with soft murmurs of "Your Highness". They stung his ears.

By the time he wove his way to a forgotten alcove, his vision was blurring. Finally alone, Legolas sank to the floor, shivering. Unable to bear the mounting pressure behind his breastbone any longer, he hunched over, falling to rasping coughs that quickly gave way to noisy, ugly sobs.

Hugging his knees, Legolas cried. Tears tumbled down his cheeks, a broken string of pearls, until at last cold sweat stuck strands of golden hair to his temples and his nose was so stuffy he could barely breathe.

Taking a deep breath, Legolas drew a hand back. With all his strength, he slapped himself across the cheek. First the right, then the left.

His face burned white-hot, his hand throbbed, but finally the tears slowed to a trickle, and unsteadily, Legolas climbed to his feet.

Slowly, he started back the way he had come.

* * *

At dawn, a young lord waited under the vine-adorned arch of Imladris' Eastern gate. Face turned to the wind, he stood as still as if he were hewn from the valley-stones of the very cliffs that watched over him. A circlet of stars rested upon his brow, the silver bright against his dark hair. The Ñoldorin of the valley waited with him, their fair faces dimmed.

By degrees, the pebbles underfoot began to leap with the thunder of pounding hooves, and then the riders swept into view. A company of Ñoldorin warriors, they bore sword and shield, the graceful lines of their chainmail glinting in the early morning light. His people, stern and arrogant, noble and valiant, riding to war.

At their head led Legolas Thranduilion, astride his white stallion. Faensul was a tall, prideful creature, a powerful destrier whose muscles rippled with each long, flowing stride, but Legolas rode without a bridle. A longbow slung across his back, clad again in green and brown, the prince of the woodland realm guided his horse by light touch alone. Gone was the dulled gaze, the tremulous frailty, as though the cruelty of the Morghul blade had been but a dream, made feeble upon waking.

Even as a small, glad cry of disbelief escaped him, Elladan felt a spark of fear. How had Legolas managed this?

A fleck of cinnabar-red marked the centre of Legolas' brow, like a lick of flame, vivid as the sun. Save for the _mithril_ -veined vambraces glinting at his wrists, he wore no armour. Both horse and master moved like water, and as they flashed past, a murmur of approval rose from the watching Ñoldor.

"Show-off," Elladan muttered in fond disgust, and then he was running after Legolas, the circlet of stars forgotten.

"Good-bye, _tithen las_!" the young Lord of Imladris shouted, oblivious to the dirt that splattered across his cheek from the riders' passage. "Come back safe, or I'll cut down every single one of your precious trees! Come back safe, all of you, do you hear me?"

The riders did not slow, did not stop. Lifting a hand to him, Legolas streaked through the Eastern gate, an arrow finally let fly, his grey eyes alight with a wild, proud audacity that Elladan hadn't seen the whole winter long.

"Legolas!"

A small blur barrelled out of the crowd. Estel, who had immediately abandoned his lessons and a nonplussed Erestor upon hearing that Legolas was leaving, had only just reached the Eastern gate.

Instinctively, Elladan reached out to stop him, caught himself, and silently lowered his hand.

Panting, Estel ran past the gate, but warhorses are far swifter than little boys, and before he even managed to catch sight of the lead rider, he was left far behind. Changing tack, Estel scrambled up a boulder by the side of the valley path and stood upon it, waving wildly.

As the gathered Ñoldorin began to drift away, like mist dissipating in the face of the rising sun, Estel rose to his tiptoes, still waving frantically.

 _He will look back,_ Estel thought, _and when he looks back, he will see me, right here, waiting for him!_

He was still there when the fire in the sky yielded at last to endless blue.

Legolas had not looked back.

* * *

Author's Note:

(I think I've given up trying to estimate how many chapters this story will run for, because Legolas and co. seem determined to prove me wrong!)

 **Translations:**

 _Feä:_ Soul, that which is born of the Secret Fire of Ilúvatar

 _Hroä:_ Body, that which is crafted from Arda

 _Laiqualassë:_ Translation of Legolas in Quenya, the formal elven-tongue reserved for writing and scholarly pursuits


End file.
